UNIVERSITY  of  CALIFORNIA 


LOS  ANGELES 
LIBRARY 


What  Shall  We  Read 
to  the  Children? 


What  Shall  We  Read 
to  the  Children? 


By 

Clara  Whitehill  Hunt 


Boston  and  New  York 
Houghton  Mifflin  Company 

(Cfcc  ftnicrjjibe  prc?g  Cambritioc 
1915 


COPYRIGHT,   I91S1  BY  CLARA  W.  HUNT 
ALL  RIGHTS  RESERVED 

Published  October  iqis 


f  r\  -y  rf 


TO 
MY  FATHER  AND  MOTHER 

"  Nor  time,  nor  space,  nor  deep,  nor  high 
Can  keep  my  ovm  away  from  me." 


WHEN  MOTHER  READS  ALOUD 

When  mother  reads  aloud,  the  past 

Seems  real  as  every  day; 
I  hear  the  tramp  of  armies  vast, 
I  see  the  spears  and  lances  cast, 

I  join  the  thrilling  fray; 
Brave  knights  and  ladies  fair  and  proud 
I  meet,  when  mother  reads  aloud. 

When  mother  reads  aloud,  far  lands 

Seem  very  near  and  true; 
I  cross  the  desert's  gleaming  sands, 
Or  hunt  the  jungle's  prowling  bands, 

Or  sail  the  ocean  blue; 
Far  heights,  whose  peaks  the  cold  mists  shroud, 
I  scale,  when  mother  reads  aloud. 

When  mother  reads  aloud,  I  long 

For  noble  deeds  to  do  — 
To  help  the  right,  redress  the  wrong; 
It  seems  so  easy  to  be  strong, 

So  simple  to  be  true. 
Oh,  thick  and  fast  the  visions  crowd 
My  eyes,  when  mother  reads  aloud ! 

Author  Unknown. 


CONTENTS 

I. 

Fathers  and  Mothers  and  Chil- 

dren's Books                                     1 

II. 

The  Poetry  Habit        ...     10 

III. 

Nature  Poetry      .         .         .         .24 

IV. 

Picture  Books      .         .         .         .39 

V. 

Fairy  Tales           .         .         .         .51 

VI. 

Bible  Stories         .         .         .         .63 

VII. 

Stories  that  might  be  True :  Some 

"Don'ts"          ....     73 

VIII.  Stories  that  might  be  True:  How 

to  Choose  Them       ...     82 

IX.  Travel  and  History  Stories  .         .     98 

X.  Nature  Books      .        .         .        .107 

XI.  Books  of  Occupations  and  Games  117 

XII.  Buying  the  Library      .         .         .129 

XIII.  When  the  Little  Children  grow 

Big  ...        .        .        .146 


What  Shall  We  Read  to 
the  Children? 

CHAPTER  I 

FATHERS   AND   MOTHERS   AND    CHILDREN'S 
BOOKS 

The  book  agent  was  a  very  persuasive 
talker.  She  was,  moreover,  an  attractive 
young  thing  to  look  upon,  the  blues  in  her 
tasteful  gown  and  hat  emphasizing  the 
color  of  her  pretty  eyes  and  setting  off  the 
gold  of  her  soft  hair.  When  one  adds  that 
she  seemed  really  fond  of  children,  and 
that  four-  and  five-year-old  Teddy  and 
Frances  were  soon  leaning  confidingly 
against  her  knee,  listening  to  the  story  of 
a  picture  in  the  wonderful  subscription 
set  offered  on  such  reasonable  terms,  it  is 
not  surprising  that  this  gifted  agent  car- 


%       READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

ried  away  an  order  for  the  ten  volumes  of 
Blank's  "History  of  the  World,"  to  be  de- 
livered within  a  week  at  the  home  of  the 
ambitious  little  mother  of  four  growing 
children. 

When  Ted  Senior  came  home  from  the 
office  a  teasing  twinkle  answered  his  wife's 
account  of  her  purchase;  and  when  the 
volumes  arrived,  a  swift  examination  of 
the  pulpy  paper,  cheap  half-tones  and 
stilted  language  put  the  finishing  touches 
to  Mrs.  Ted's  misgivings  about  the  won- 
derful "Home  Educator"  which  she  had 
far-sightedly  provided  for  her  young. 

The  children,  however,  from  baby 
Teddy  to  seven-  and  nine-year-old  Dick 
and  Tom,  promptly  showed  their  lack 
of  sympathy  with  the  grown-ups'  dis- 
approval of  the  new  acquisition.  Three 
minutes  after  the  unpacking,  four  round 
heads  were  bent  over  four  stout  volumes, 
and  a  stillness  like  unto  that  of  sermon 


PARENTS]  AND  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS    3 

time  settled  upon  the  sitting-room  of  the 
house  of  —  Jones,  let  us  call  it.  Were 
there  not  pictures,  scattered  generously 
through  the  thick  books,  —  every  few 
pages  a  picture:  a  picture  that  told  a 
story  —  a  story  of  strange  people  doing 
thrillingly  interesting  things  that  Father 
and  Mother  would  have  to  explain,  even- 
ings and  rainy  days  and  Sundays? 

The  explanations  began  that  very  even- 
ing. 

"Father,  what  does  it  say  under  this 
picture?" 

Father  emerged  from  his  newspaper 
long  enough  to  read:  "Marie  Antoinette 
and  her  husband  holding  court  under 
Louis  XV." 

"Who  was  Marie  Antoinette,  Father?" 

After  a  pause:  "She  was  a  beautiful 
and  unfortunate  queen." 

"Why  was  she  unfortunate,  Father? 
What  happened  to  her?AWas  she  real  or 


4       READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

just  a  story  queen?  Did  she  have  any  little 

princes?  Did  she  have  a  coach  and  six  and 

outriders  and  gold  dishes  and  —  tell  me, 

Father!" 

*    The  newspaper  slid  to  the  floor  and  was 

not  picked  up  till  Mother  came  to  shoo 

the  reluctant  history  class  to  bed. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  a  series  of 
impromptu  talks  on  general  history,  ex- 
tending over  a  number  of  years  and  ex- 
hibiting the  somewhat  unusual  spectacle 
of  pupils  so  athirst  for  information  as  to 
be  obliged  to  prod  their  teacher  in  order 
to  satisfy  their  cravings. 

The  other  day  some  of  the  grown-up 
relatives  of  that  family  of  children  were 
speaking  of  the  old  "  History  of  the  World  " 
and  its  effect  upon  the  children's  develop- 
ment in  breadth  of  interest.  "Positively, 
our  Dick  at  seven  years  of  age  knew  more 
about  the  French  Revolution  than  I  did 
at  seventeen,"  said  one  of  Dick's  aunts. 


PARENTS  AND  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS    5 

"And  the  best  of  it  was,  he  wanted  to 
know,  —  he  did  not  have  his  information 
jammed  into  an  obstinate  noddle  by  a 
suffering  teacher." 

Now  the  moral  I  wish  to  draw  from  the 
above  essentially  true  story  is  not  that 
one  should  indulge  in  subscription  sets 
if  attractive  and  intelligent  agents  offer 
them  at  one's  door.  On  the  contrary,  I 
would  never  make  such  a  purchase  with- 
out expert  advice.  But  the  experience  of 
the  Jones  family  offers  a  number  of  sug- 
gestions worth  noting  by  buyers  of  a 
young  child's  library,  as  for  example:  — 

That  children  and  grown  people  fre- 
quently differ  as  to  what  is  interesting  to 
children; 

That  a  healthy  child  is  a  live  interroga- 
tion-point; 

That  this  curiosity  is  not  limited  to 
babyish  things; 

That  no  parent  need  have  the  slightest 


6       READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

fear  of  forcing  his  child  into  an  attack  of 
brain-fever  by  answering  fully  the  spon- 
taneous questions  of  his  small  son  or 
daughter; 

That  the  library  in  which  a  child 
"tumbles  about"  before  he  is  seven  will 
have  a  tremendous  influence  upon  the 
interests  and  tastes  of  that  child  to  the 
end  of  his  life; 

That  it  is  worth  while  to  choose  such  a 
library  as  will  make  those  interests  and 
tastes  the  best  possible; 

That  it  is  woeful  waste  to  leave  to 
teacher  and  librarian  —  that  is,  to  leave 
until  the  child,  at  seven  or  eight,  learns 
to  read  —  the  influencing  of  the  reading 
tastes  of  one's  boys  and  girls. 

One  of  the  most  surprising  observations 
of  my  library  experience  is  the  lack  of  re- 
spect for  their  children's  mental  powers 
shown  by  devoted  parents. 

"What!"  exclaims  the  long-suffering 


PARENTS  AND  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS     7 

friend  of  a  fond  parent,  "the  father  who 
thinks  no  child  before  his  ever  cut  a  tooth 
so  cleverly,  who  is  sure  when  his  boy  first 
articulates  *  Pa-pa,'  that  the  youngster  is 
destined  to  become  a  Demosthenes,  —  do 
you  mean  to  say  you  think  that  parent  is 
inclined  to  belittle  his  child's  gifts?" 

After  years  of  acquaintance  with  all  * 
sorts  I  assert  that  the  parents  who  do  not, 
consciously  or  unconsciously,  hold  back 
their  children's  intellectual  development 
are  so  uncommon  as  to  be  noticeable;  and 
I  am  not  thinking  of  the  fathers  and 
mothers  who  are  themselves  unable  to 
read  or  write,  but  of  those  from  our  in- 
telligent and  materially  prosperous  classes. 
The  anxious  care  with  which  parents  keep 
their  eager-minded  children  on  literary 
bottle  diet,  until  only  the  most  intensely 
active-brained  escape  the  stunting  effect 
on  their  interests,  — ■  this  habit  of  mothers 
who  would  cheerfully  lay  their  heads  on 


8        READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

the  block  for  the  good  of  their  young,  —  I 
sometimes  think  must  be  due  to  the  truly 
awful  —  and  of  course  truly  proper  — 
emphasis  laid  upon  the  care  necessary  for 
the  perfect  physical  development  of  the 
baby. 

Young  mothers  to-day  are  so  appall- 
ingly wise!  They  know  to  a  day  when  it 
is  time  to  add  to  the  quantity  or  variety 
of  the  little  one's  food ;  they  are  fully  alive 
to  the  importance  of  outdoor  play  in  mak- 
ing healthy  bodies;  they  have  heard  sad 
tales  of  the  early  graves  of  young  prodi- 
gies, forced  by  parents  less  wise  than  am- 
bitious. Perhaps,  too,  out  of  their  respect 
for  the  opinion  of  the  specialist  in  one  line, 
—  that  of  the  child's  physical  care,  —  the 
mother  acquires  a  feeling  that  it  is  best  to 
leave  to  the  expert  in  another  the  guid- 
ance of  the  child's  reading. 

So  it  happens  that  we  librarians  often 
find  the  children  of  intelligent  parents 


PARENTS  AND  CHILDREN'S  BOOKS     9 

strangely  narrow  in  their  reading  tastes, 
since  we  catch  the  children  too  late  to  have 
the  necessary  influence  upon  them.  And 
so  it  happens  that  I  am  writing  to  urge 
fathers  and  mothers,  while  they  are  per- 
fecting themselves  in  the  knowledge  of 
the  care  and  feeding  of  children's  bodies, 
to  give  more  study  than  has  been  custom- 
ary to  the  care  and  feeding  of  the  young 
minds. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   POETRY   HABIT 

When  I  was  a  little  girl  I  had  the  good 
fortune  to  live  in  a  city  where  there  were 
no  bridge  crushes  and  police-patrol  gongs, 
barrack-built  flats  and  brown-stone  rows, 
to  frighten  away  the  birds  and  crowd  out 
the  flowers  and  play-spaces;  but  where 
fathers,  even  on  moderate  salaries,  could 
own  little  houses  with  big  piazzas  and  gen- 
erous yards.  We  boys  and  girls  raised  jack- 
o'-lantern  pumpkins  in  those  yards,  and 
cheerful  morning-glories  and  downy  chick- 
ens. We  plucked  juicy  plums  and  cherries 
and  grapes  from  our  own  trees  and  vines. 
We  played  in  safe,  shady  streets  without 
fear  of  trolleys  or  motors;  for  our  city  was 
so  charmingly  behind  the  times  that  the 
jingling  horse-car  did  not  readily  give  place 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  11 

to  the  clanging  electric.  In  spring  we 
tapped  the  maple  trees  in  front  of  our 
houses,  smacking  our  lips  over  the  few 
spoonfuls  of  sap  that  dripped  as  musically 
into  our  suspended  pails  as  if  this  were  a 
"truly"  maple-sugar  camp  in  the  country. 
After  school  hours,  in  the  rapidly  gather- 
ing dusk  of  short  autumn  days,  we  raked 
gorgeous  leaves  into  huge  piles  and  danced 
wild  Indian  dances  around  bonfires  that 
blazed  like  beacons  up  and  down  the 
length  of  streets  unpaved  with  forbidden 
asphalt.  We  made  snow-forts  and  snow- 
men and  Eskimo  huts,  we  wallowed  in 
clean  snowdrifts,  we  coasted  down  long, 
hilly  streets  on  our  big  brothers'  "bobs." 
Yet  how  all  these  pleasures  of  the  school 
year  were  as  drab  to  scarlet  contrasted 
with  the  radiance  of  vacations  on  grand- 
mother's beautiful  farm!  How  we  hated 
to  take  off  our  clothes  at  night  for  fear 
troublesome  buttons  would  make  us  miss 


12      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

something  in  the  mornings  when  we  woke 
far  too  early  to  bother  poor  mother  to  help 
us  dress.  How,  beneath  all  the  childish, 
physical  delights  of  wading  and  huckle- 
berrying  and  riding  a-top  the  loaded  hay- 
wagon  and  playing  "I  spy  "  in  the  shadowy 
barn,  there  flowed  the  deep  current  of  joy 
in  the  beauty  of  earth  and  sky!  When, 
barefooted  under  the  willows,  we  tugged 
at  heavy  rocks  which  we  perspiringly 
erected  into  lighthouses  and  forts  to  guard 
our  homes  along  the  brook,  —  I  should  say 
the  seashore,  —  we  were  only  dimly  con- 
scious that  the  song  of  the  brook  and  the 
carpet  of  dancing  light  and  shade  under 
our  feet,  the  feel  of  the  flower-scented 
breeze  on  our  hot  little  faces,  the  mur- 
mur and  hum  of  the  insects  in  the  waving 
meadow  grass  over  the  stone  wall,  the 
vivid  blue  of  the  sky  which  an  old  black 
crow  "caw  caw'd"  for  us  to  look  up  and 
notice,  —  that  all  these  beauties  of  Mother 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  13 

Earth  were  a  deep  part  of  the  happiness 
of  our  free  play  in  the  outdoors,  whose 
largeness  was  answering  to  a  craving  of 
the  child-soul,  that  feels  the  cramp  of  the 
city  more  than  does  the  adult. 

To-day  I  watch  the  children  at  play  as 
I  walk  to  my  office  along  streets  of  highly 
respectable  apartment-houses.  How  cru- 
elly narrow  the  range  for  the  imagination 
of  the  young  child !  The  very  "  respectabil- 
ity "  of  a  neighborhood  —  which  exacts  a 
rent  that  often  eats  up  all  country  vacation 
money  —  is  against  the  child.  How  can 
a  youngster  possibly  have  a  good  time  if  he 
is  not  allowed  to  muss  up  the  front  steps 
and  get  his  clothes  dirty?  Yet  it  is  not  the 
physical  handicap  of  the  city  child  that 
most  stirs  my  pity,  for  his  health  record 
is  steadily  improving.  It  is  the  little  one's 
missing  experiences  in  beauty,  it  is  the 
robbery  of  his  imagination,  effected  by 
paved  streets,  that  I  deplore. 


14      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

There  is  no  possible  help  for  these  chil- 
dren except  as  they  shall  get  their  expe- 
riences vicariously  through  father  and 
mother  and  books.  For  our  comfort  we 
know  how  marvelously  books  can  be  made 
to  supply  what  father's  salary  cannot. 
Only  we  need  to  remember  how  and  when 
to  apply  the  various  books.  There  is  a  best 
time  for  introducing  poetry  and  myth  and 
heroes  of  history;  and  a  lifelong  loss  may 
be  that  child's  whose  parents  know  not 
when  to  feed  a  certain  interest. 

The  baby's  first  taste  of  poetry  should 
be  given  not  later  than  a  month  after  he 
alights,  trailing  his  clouds  of  glory  and  with 
the  music  of  his  heavenly  home  attuning 
his  ears  to  a  delight  in  rhyme  and  rhythm 
long  before  mother's  songs  convey  word 
meanings  to  his  mind.  There  never  was  a 
normal  baby  born  into  this  world  who  did 
not  bring  with  him  a  love  for  poetry;  and 
the  fact  that  so  few  adults  retain  a  trace 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  15 

of  this  most  pure  delight  points  to  the  need 
of  conscious  effort  on  the  parent's  part  to 
foster  the  child's  natural  gift. 

So  the  first  book  I  would  put  into  the 
baby's  library  would  be  a  collection  of  the 
loveliest  lullabies  and  hymns  and  sweet 
old  story  songs.  I  know  that  doctors  and 
nurses  frown  upon  rocking  the  baby  to 
sleep,  but  if  I  were  a  young  mother  I'd 
rock  and  sing  to  that  baby  after  he  waked 
up!  I  would  sing  Tennyson's  "Sweet  and 
low,"  and  Holland's  "Rockaby,  lullaby, 
bees  in  the  clover,"  and  Field's  "  Wynken 
and  Blynken  and  Nod";  the  little  Ger- 
man slumber  song  — 

Sleep,  baby,  sleep, 

The  large  stars  are  the  sheep; 

and  the  Gaelic  lullaby  — 

Hush,  the  waves  are  rolling  in 
White  with  foam,  white  with  foam. 

I  would  sing  "O  little  town  of  Bethle- 
hem," and  "It  came  upon  the  midnight 


16      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

clear,"  and  "While  shepherds  watched 
their  flocks  by  night."  I  would  sing  the 
"Crusader's  Hymn,"  and  Luther's  "A 
mighty  fortress  is  our  God,"  and  New- 
man's "Lead,  Kindly  Light,"  and  Pleyel's 
"Children  of  the  Heavenly  King,"  and 
Baring-Gould's  "Now  the  day  is  over." 
I  would  sing  "Annie Laurie,"  and  "Home, 
sweet  home,"  and  "Flow  gently,  sweet 
Afton,"  and  "The  Swanee  River." 

Choosing  songs  so  beautiful  and  so  ap- 
pealing to  a  child's  heart,  I  should  make 
sure  that  when  the  little  one  began  to  try 
to  imitate  mother,  he  would  sing  of  winds 
that  ruffle  the  waves  of  dew,  of  pleasant 
banks  and  green  valleys  and  clear,  wind- 
ing rills,  of  the  Heavenly  Father's  care,  of 
the  enduringness  of  home  love.  I  should 
know  that,  though  the  words  at  first  called 
up  no  clear  mental  pictures,  they  would 
spell  love  and  beauty  and  happy  feeling, 
and  that  life  would,  little  by  little,  unfold 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  17 

to  the  child  the  full  meanings  of  these 
lovely  songs. 

Before  the  baby  is  a  year  old  he  will  en- 
joy action  rhymes  like  "This  little  pig 
went  to  market/' "  Pat-a-cake,  pat-a-cake, 
baker's  man."  By  the  time  he  is  two,  he 
will  be  trying  to  repeat  the  gay  Mother 
Goose  jingles  with  their  irresponsible 
nonsense  and  their  catching  rhyme  and 
rhythm.  When  he  is  three  he  will  be  enjoy- 
ing Stevenson's  "I  have  a  little  shadow 
that  goes  in  and  out  with  me,"  and  other 
posies  from  "The  Child's  Garden  of 
Verses." 

Now  the  important  thing  is  for  the 
baby  to  acquire  the  poetry  hajbit.  A  few 
years  later,  this  child,  if  he  has  not  lis- 
tened to  verse  nearly  every  day  of  his  life, 
may  begin  to  be  bored  by  the  language 
of  poetry,  so  dear  to  one  who  comprehends 
quickly,  so  tiresome  to  one  who,  for  lack 
of  i  aration,  must  dig  out  the 


18      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

meanings  as  he  works  at  a  translation 
from  a  dead  language. 

At  first  we  need  to  repeat  nursery- 
jingles  and  the  simplest  child  verses,  be- 
cause these  are  the  bottom  steps  of  the 
"golden  staircase"  to  real  poetry.  If, 
however,  we  try  to  get  firmly  lodged  in 
mind  the  fact  that  children  enjoy  an  in- 
finite number  of  things  which  they  do  not 
understand;  that  they  understand  far 
more  than  they  can  express;  that  their 
understanding  grows  by  leaps  and  bounds 
if  we  foolish  adults  do  not  interfere,  — 
we  shall  stop  trying  to  stint  their  active 
imaginations  by  keeping  them  so  long  on 
baby  rhymes. 

The  child  will  most  easily  climb  the 
staircase  to  real  poetry  by  way  of  story- 
telling poems.  Sentimental  and  martial, 
merry  and  sad,  the  story  interest  and  the 
music  of  the  old  English  and  Scotch  bal- 
lads fit  them  exactly  to  the  liking  of  chil- 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  19 

dren,  little  and  big.  Browning  and  Ten- 
nyson, Matthew  Arnold  and  Scott  and 
Longfellow  give  to  the  children  "The 
Pied  Piper,"  "The  Lady  of  Shalott" 
"The  Forsaken  Merman,"  "Jock  of 
Hazeldean,"  "The  Bell  of  Atri."  A 
number  almost  without  end  of  stirring 
romances  in  verse  will  reward  a  search 
through  our  "adult"  poetry  library,  after 
we  have  exhausted  the  lovely  children's 
collections  like  "The  Blue  Poetry  Book," 
"Golden  Numbers,"  "The  Golden  Stair- 
case," and  others. 

Each  poem  may  be  made  to  introduce 
many  others,  if  we  take  advantage  of  the 
child's  delight  in  the  association  of  ideas 
he  has  acquired.  For  example,  the  little 
one  has  loved  to  hear  mother  sing  "Annie 
Laurie  "  and  "  The  Blue  Bells  of  Scotland" 
and  "The  Campbells  are  comin'."  He  has 
mourned  brave  Sir  Patrick  Spens,  has 
galloped  with  Lochinvar,  and  "wi'  Wal- 


20      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

lace  bled"  in  defense  of  Scotland's  free- 
dom. Scotland  to  him  has  become  a  land 
of  romance,  dear  to  his  heart.  One  day, 
after  he  has  been  lustily  singing  "The 
Campbells  are  comin',  Oho!  Oho!" 
mother  tells  him  how  the  dying  English, 
penned  up  in  Lucknow,  sprang  to  their 
feet  laughing  and  crying  with  joy  as  they 
heard,  faint  and  far  away,  the  bagpipes 
playing  "The  Campbells  are  comin'." 
Now  is  the  time  to  read  Whittier's  "The 
Pipes  at  Lucknow,"  as  Bayard  Taylor's 
"Song  of  the  Camp"  will  touch  the  chil- 
dren after  they  have  joined  in  singing 
"Annie  Laurie."  Taylor's  poem,  and  the 
bit  of  explanation  about  the  Crimean 
War  which  it  involves,  will  introduce 
"The  Charge  of  the  Light  Brigade," 
another  stirring  poem  of  the  same  war. 

A  whole  cycle  of  Southern  and  Civil 
War  songs  and  poems  may  follow  the 
reading  of  the  Uncle  Remus  stories,  — 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  21 

"Dixie,"  and  "Maryland,  my  Maryland," 
"My  Old  Kentucky  Home,"  "Sheridan's 
Ride,"  and  "Oh,  Captain,  my  Captain!" 
Somehow  the  child  will  enter  into  the 
heart  of  the  North  and  the  South,  the 
soldier  and  the  slave,  and  he  will  be  a 
better  American  in  this  reunited  country 
for  loving  the  songs  of  both  sections  that 
gave  their  best  for  what  they  believed  to 
be  the  right. 

Make  it  an  unvarying  practice  to  link 
poetry  with  the  children's  every  happy 
experience,  every  celebration,  family  or 
national  or  religious.  Read  the  "  Concord 
Hymn"  and  "Paul  Revere's  Ride"  on 
the  Fourth  of  July,  "The  Landing  of  the 
Pilgrims"  at  Thanksgiving,  "The  Flag 
goes  by  "  and  "  The  Commemoration  Ode  " 
on  Memorial  Day.  Weeks  before  Christ- 
mas begin  to  read  and  sing  every  beauti- 
ful poem  and  song  you  can  find.  There 
are  so  many,  we  have  no  excuse  for  de- 


22      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

scending  to  doggerel.  On  New  Year's 
Eve  read  Tennyson's  "Death  of  the  Old 
Year";  on  a  gusty  winter  evening  read 
"Old  Winter  is  a  sturdy  one";  on  the 
baby's  birthday,  "Where  did  you  come 
from,  Baby  dear?"  Before  taking  a 
journey  hunt  up  poems  of  places  the  chil- 
dren will  visit.  After  an  exciting  trip  to 
the  Zoo  read  Blake's  "Tiger,  tiger,  burn- 
ing bright,"  and  Taylor's  "Night  with  a 
Wolf." 

When  the  children  have  enjoyed  the 
Norse  stories,  read  them  Longfellow's 
"Skeleton  in  Armor."  After  hearing  the 
stories  of  Tarpeia  and  Curtius  and  other 
Roman  legends,  they  will  be  ready  for 
Macaulay's  "Lays." 

Does  any  father  or  mother  think  I  am 
going  too  fast?  Prove  it  by  experiment! 
I  am  suggesting  a  poetry  course,  not  for 
the  "exceptional  child,"  but  for  real  little 
bread-and-butter  boys  and  girls  of  happy 


THE  POETRY  HABIT  23 

birth  and  home  environment.  There  are 
only  three  rules  necessary  to  follow  if  you 
would  delight  your  soul  with  watching 
your  children's  poetry  taste  grow  with 
their  growth.  These  are 

Begin  early. 

Read  poetry  every  day. 

Read  the  right  poem  at  the  right  time. 


CHAPTER  III 

NATURE   POETRY 

It  has  been  a  comparatively  simple  task 
to  keep  alive  the  baby's  poetry  taste 
while  we  have  confined  ourselves  to  stories 
in  verse.  To  kindle  a  love  for  nature 
poetry  in  the  child  who  walks  along  paved 
streets  lined  with  high  brick  walls,  will  be 
more  difficult.  The  question  of  preparing, 
the  way  and  of  choosing  the  time  —  the 
"psychological  moment" — for  reading 
will  now  be  even  more  important  than  it 
has  hitherto  been. 

The  city  lies  gasping  in  the  heat.  The 
tiny  square  of  grass  in  the  yard  is  burned 
to  a  crisp.  The  dusty  leaves  on  the  few 
neighboring  trees  hang  limp  with  thirst. 
The  pavements  almost  scorch  the  feet. 
Suddenly  clouds  roll  up,  black  and  lower- 


NATURE  POETRY  25 

ing.  Torrents  of  rain  beat  against  the 
window.  The  choked  sewers  make  rivers 
of  the  streets,  rivers  in  which  gleeful  boys 
sail  quickly  improvised  boats. 

Little  Wonder  Eyes,  too  young  to  go  to 
school,  flattens  his  nose  against  the  pane, 
watching,  fascinated,  for  a  long,  long  time, 
this  glorious  rain.  Mother  does  not  in- 
terrupt. She  makes  ready  to  vivify  this 
experience  by  reading  at  bedtime  Long- 
fellow's "Rain  in  Summer":  — 

How  beautiful  is  the  rain! 

After  the  dust  and  heat, 

In  the  broad  and  fiery  street, 

In  the  narrow  lane, 

How  beautiful  is  the  rain! 

How  it  clatters  along  the  roofs, 

Like  the  tramp  of  hoofs! 

How  it  gushes  and  struggles  out 

From  the  throat  of  the  overflowing  spout! 

Across  the  window-pane 
It  pours  and  pours; 


26      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

And  swift  and  wide, 

With  a  muddy  tide, 

Like  a  river  down  the  gutter  roars 

The  rain,  the  welcome  rain! 

From  the  neighboring  school 

Come  the  boys, 

With  more  than  their  wonted  noise 

And  commotion; 

And  down  the  wet  streets 

Sail  their  mimic  fleets, 

Till  the  treacherous  pool 

Ingulfs  them  in  its  whirling 

And  turbulent  ocean. 

In  the  country,  on  every  side, 

Where  far  and  wide, 

Like  the  leopard's  tawny  and  spotted  hide, 

Stretches  the  plain, 

In  the  dry  grass  and  the  drier  grain, 

How  welcome  is  the  rain ! 

In  the  furrowed  land 

The  toilsome  and  patient  oxen  stand; 

Lifting  the  yoke-encumbered  head, 

With  their  dilated  nostrils  spread, 

They  silently  inhale 

The  clover-scented  gale, 


NATURE  POETRY  27 

And  the  vapors  that  arise 

From  the  well- watered  and  smoking  soil. 

For  this  rest  in  the  furrow  after  toil 

Their  large  and  lustrous  eyes 

Seem  to  thank  the  Lord, 

More  than  man's  spoken  word. 


Does  any  one  question  the  child's  en- 
joying this  "grown-ups'"  poem,  heard  in 
the  freshness  of  a  vivid  experience?  Of 
course,  if  we  wait  till  next  winter  for  our 
first  reading,  we  need  not  wonder  if  the 
interest  be  languid. 

Even  city  children  have  the  sky.  Don't 
always  put  the  little  one  to  bed  by  day- 
light. On  some  beautiful  evening  when 
the  silvery  radiance  of  the  moon  touches 
the  prosaic  city  with  magic,  carry  him 
out  on  the  roof,  and  letting  the  marvel- 
ous splendor  of  the  sky  sink  into  his  heart, 
repeat  softly  Addison's  "Hymn": — ■ 

Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail, 
The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale; 


28      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

And  nightly  to  the  listening  Earth 

Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth: 

Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 

And  all  the  planets  in  their  turn, 

Confirm  the  tidings  as  they  roll, 

And  spread  the  truth  from  pole  to  pole. 

What  though  in  solemn  silence  all 
Move  round  the  dark  terrestrial  ball: 
What  though  nor  real  voice  nor  sound 
Amidst  their  radiant  orbs  be  found? 
In  Reason's  ear  they  all  rejoice, 
And  utter  forth  a  glorious  voice; 
Forever  singing  as  they  shine, 
"The  Hand  that  made  us  is  divine." 

Make  the  most  of  afternoons  in  the 
park,  of  Saturdays  by  lake  or  sea  or  river. 
A  mother  with  an  imagination  can  con- 
struct a  whole  forest  out  of  a  single  tree. 
An  inland  mother  can  give  the  very  tang 
of  the  sea  by  means  of  vivid  stories  and 
pictures  —  pictures  of  giant  waves  and 
storm-driven  ships,  of  lighthouses,  strange 
sea  monsters,  coral  islands.  Visits  to  the 
museum,  a  murmuring  shell,  the  effects  of 


NATURE  POETRY  29 

an  inland  storm,  all  these  together  will 
prepare  a  child  to  love  Mary  Howitt's 
"Sea-Gull":  — 

For  the  Sea-Gull,  he  is  a  daring  bird, 

And  he  loves  with  the  storm  to  sail; 
To  ride  in  the  strength  of  the  billowy  sea, 

And  to  breast  the  driving  gale! 
The  little  boat,  she  is  tossed  about, 

Like  a  seaweed,  to  and  fro; 
The  tall  ship  reels  like  a  drunken  man, 

As  the  gusty  tempests  blow. 

But  the  Sea-Gull  laughs  at  the  fear  of  man, 

And  sails  in  a  wild  delight 
On  the  torn-up  breast  of  the  night-black  sea, 

Like  a  foam-cloud,  calm  and  white. 
The  waves  may  rage  and  the  winds  may  roar, 

But  he  fears  not  wreck  nor  need; 
For  he  rides  the  sea,  in  its  stormy  strength, 

As  a  strong  man  rides  his  steed ! 

Oh,  the  white  Sea-Gull,  the  bold  Sea-Gull! 

He  makes  on  the  shore  his  nest, 
And  he  tries  what  the  inland  fields  may  be; 

But  he  loveth  the  sea  the  best ! 
And  away  from  land  a  thousand  leagues, 

He  goes  'mid  surging  foam; 
What  matter  to  him  is  land  or  shore, 

For  the  sea  is  his  truest  home ! 


30      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

If  the  child  is  actually  to  visit  the  shore 
next  summer,  save  until  he  has  gathered 
driftwood,  until  he  has  seen  the  light- 
house gleam  through  the  fog  and  the 
little  sandpiper  flit  along  the  beach,  Celia 
Thaxter's  "Sandpiper":  — 

Across  the  narrow  beach  we  flit, 

One  little  sandpiper  and  I, 
And  fast  I  gather,  bit  by  bit, 

The  scattered  driftwood  bleached  and  dry. 
The  wild  waves  reach  their  hands  for  it, 

The  wild  wind  raves,  the  tide  runs  high, 
As  up  and  down  the  beach  we  flit,  — 

One  little  sandpiper  and  I. 

Above  our  heads  the  sullen  clouds 

Scud  black  and  swift  across  the  sky; 
Like  silent  ghosts  in  misty  shrouds 

Stand  out  the  white  lighthouses  high. 
Almost  as  far  as  eye  can  reach 

I  see  the  close-reefed  vessels  fly, 
As  fast  we  flit  along  the  beach,  — 

One  little  sandpiper  and  I. 

I  watch  him  as  he  skims  along, 

Uttering  his  sweet  and  mournful  cry ; 


NATURE  POETRY  31 

He  starts  not  at  my  fitful  song, 

Or  flash  of  fluttering  drapery. 
He  has  no  thought  of  any  wrong; 

He  scans  me  with  a  fearless  eye: 
Staunch  friends  are  we,  well  tried  and  strong, 

The  little  sandpiper  and  I. 

Read  Le  Gallienne's  "Child's  Even- 
song"1 at  bedtime  after  a  summer  after- 
noon in  park  or  field :  — 

The  sun  is  weary,  for  he  ran 

So  far  and  fast  to-day; 
The  birds  are  weary,  for  who  sang 

So  many  songs  as  they? 
The  bees  and  butterflies  at  last 

Are  tired  out,  for  just  think  too 
How  many  gardens  through  the  day 

Their  little  wings  have  fluttered  through. 
And  so,  as  all  tired  people  do, 

They  've  gone  to  lay  their  sleepy  heads 
Deep,  deep  in  warm  and  happy  beds. 

The  sun  has  shut  his  golden  eye 
And  gone  to  sleep  beneath  the  sky, 
And  birds  and  butterflies  and  bees 
Have  all  crept  into  flowers  and  trees, 

1  From  English  Poems,  by  Richard  Le  Gallienne, 
published  by  John  Lane  Company,  New  York. 


32      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

And  all  lie  quiet,  still  as  mice, 

Till  morning  comes  —  like  father's  voice. 

So  Geoffry,  Owen,  Phyllis,  you 
Must  sleep  away  till  morning  too. 
Close  little  eyes,  down  little  heads, 
And  sleep  —  sleep  —  sleep  in  happy  beds. 

Try  to  make  it  possible  for  the  children 
to  notice,  by  a  country  day  in  spring, 
Mother  Nature's  waking  the  alders  and 
the  willows,  the  grass  and  the  violets,  the 
frogs  and  the  birds;  and  then  read  them 
Celia  Thaxter's  "Spring":  — 

The  alder  by  the  river 

Shakes  out  her  powdery  curls; 

The  willow  buds  in  silver 
For  little  boys  and  girls. 

The  little  birds  fly  over, 

And  oh,  how  sweet  they  sing! 

To  tell  the  happy  children 
That  once  again  't  is  spring. 

The  gay  green  grass  comes  creeping 
So  soft  beneath  their  feet; 

The  frogs  begin  to  ripple 
A  music  clear  and  sweet. 


NATURE  POETRY  33 

And  buttercups  are  coming, 

And  scarlet  columbine; 
And  in  the  sunny  meadows 

The  dandelions  shine. 

And  just  as  many  daisies 
As  their  soft  hands  can  hold 

The  little  ones  may  gather, 
All  fair  in  white  and  gold. 

Here  blows  the  warm  red  clover, 
There  peeps  the  violet  blue; 

O  happy  little  children, 

God  made  them  all  for  you ! 

Helen  Hunt  Jackson's  "September" 
will  be  enjoyed  after  country  walks  in 
fall:  — 

The  golden  rod  is  yellow, 
The  corn  is  turning  brown, 

The  trees  in  apple  orchards 
With  fruit  are  bending  down; 

The  gentian's  bluest  fringes 

Are  curling  in  the  sun; 
In  dusty  pods  the  milkweed 

Its  hidden  silk  has  spun; 


34      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

The  sedges  flaunt  their  harvest 

In  every  meadow  nook, 
And  asters  by  the  brookside 

Make  asters  in  the  brook; 

From  dewy  lanes  at  morning 
The  grapes'  sweet  odors  rise, 

At  noon  the  roads  all  flutter 
With  yellow  butterflies  — 

By  all  these  lovely  tokens 

September  days  are  here, 
With  summer's  best  of  weather 

And  autumn's  best  of  cheer.1 

Do  you  notice  the  poets  we  have  drawn 
upon,  —  the  real  poets,  not  the  obscure 
verse-grinders  ? 

Have  you  ever  thought  what  a  child 
poem  is  that  pearl  of  Shelley's,  "The 
Cloud"?  A  child  is  most  at  home  playing 
magic.  He  loves  to  pretend  he  is  a  lion,  a 
mouse,  a  giant,  a  dragon.  Shelley  is  play- 
ing the  cloud  is  a  magician,  changing  his 

1  Reprinted  by  permission  of  the  publishers,  Messrs. 
Little,  Brown  &  Co. 


NATURE  POETRY  35 

form  at  pleasure.  Do  not  read  the  poem 
until  you  are  sure  the  child  has  noticed, 
with  or  without  your  gentle  suggestions, 
the  different  manifestations  of  the  clouds, 
in  summer,  in  winter,  by  day,  by  night. 
He  need  not  be  a  high-school  pupil,  com- 
petent to  dissect  the  poem  before  he  will 
love  the  imagery  of 

I  bring  fresh  showers  for  the  thirsting  flowers, 

From  the  seas  and  the  streams; 
I  bear  light  shade  for  the  leaves  when  laid 

In  their  noonday  dreams. 
From  my  wings  are  shaken  the  dews  that  waken 

The  sweet  buds  every  one, 
When  rocked  to  rest  on  their  mother's  breast, 

As  she  dances  about  in  the  sun. 
I  wield  the  flail  of  the  lashing  hail, 

And  whiten  the  green  plains  under, 
And  then  again  I  dissolve  it  in  rain, 

And  laugh  as  I  pass  in  thunder. 

I  sift  the  snow  on  the  mountains  below, 
And  their  great  pines  groan  aghast; 

And  all  the  night  't  is  my  pillow  white, 
While  I  sleep  in  the  arms  of  the  blast. 


36      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Sublime  on  the  towers  of  my  skiey  bowers, 

Lightning  my  pilot  sits; 
In  a  cavern  under  is  fettered  the  thunder, 

It  struggles  and  howls  at  fits; 

tOver  the  rills,  and  the  crags,  and  the  hills, 
Over  the  lakes  and  the  plains, 
Wherever  he  dream,  under  mountain  or  stream, 

The  Spirit  he  loves  remains; 
And  I  all  the  while  bask  in  Heaven's  blue  smile, 
Whilst  he  is  dissolving  in  rains. 

That  orbed  maiden  with  white  fire  laden, 

Whom  mortals  call  the  Moon, 
Glides  glimmering  o'er  my  fleece-like  floor, 

By  the  midnight  breezes  strewn; 
And  wherever  the  beat  of  her  unseen  feet, 

Which  only  the  angels  hear, 
May  have  broken  the  woof  of  my  tent's  thin  roof, 
~itg&h  The  stars  peep  behind  her  and  peer; 

,;*  And  I  laugh  to  see  them  whirl  and  flee, 

Like  a  swarm  of  golden  bees, 
When  I  widen  the  rent  of  my  wind-built  tent, 

Till  the  calm  rivers,  lakes  and  seas, 
Like  strips  of  the  sky  fallen  through  me  on  high, 

Are  each  paved  with  the  moon  and  these. 


The  country  mother  will  see  how  easy  is 
her  task  compared  with  that  of  the  city 


NATURE  POETRY  37 

mother.  Not  alone  in  youth  but  for  a  life 
time  is  one's  appreciation  of  poetry  largely 
affected  by  country  experiences  in  child- 
hood. I  had  quite  grown  up  when  I  first 
chanced  upon 

The  breezy  call  of  incense-breathing  morn. 

Instantly  I  became  an  eager  little  girl  on 
grandmother's  doorstone,  poised  a  mo- 
ment to  drink  in  the  deliciousness  of  the 
day's  beginning  before  I  flew  on  to  the 
barn  to  inspect  the  milking.  Again  and 
again  have  exquisite  lines  recalled  to  me 
thrilling  moments  of  childhood  summers 
in  the  country.  Do  you  remember  Alfred 
Noyes's  "Pirates"?  How  the  man,  dream- 
ing of  a  long  dead  comrade  with  whom  he 
had  played  in  years  gone  by,  says  — 

Ah,  that  tree :  I  have  sat  in  its  boughs  and  looked 

seaward  for  hours; 
I  remember  the  creak  of  its  branches;  the  scent  of 

the  flowers 


'■ 


4-H9 


38      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

That  climbed  round  the  mouth  of  the  cave;  it  is 

odd  I  recall 
Those  little  things  best,  that  I  scarcely  took  heed 

of  at  all. 

Those  last  lines  express  the  feeling  com- 
mon to  all  grown  people  who  feel  at  all. 

Oh,  let  us  put  the  country  into  the 
memories  of  the  men  and  women  to  be. 
No  matinees  nor  museums,  no  beautiful 
clothes  nor  pampered  stomachs,  no  elec- 
trical house  appliances  nor  twentieth- 
century  schools  can  ever  make  up  to  the 
man  the  loss  from  a  childhood  spent 
wholly  in  a  great  city.  Not  for  the  sake  of 
literary  taste  in  itself,  but  because  the 
love  for,  or  lack  of  response  to,  certain 
fine  things  in  literature  are  indications  of 
vital  possessions  or  vital  needs  of  the 
heart,  do  I  urge  that  skimping  be  prac- 
ticed in  almost  any  direction  other  than 
that  of  denying  children  the  country. 


CHAPTER  IV 

PICTURE   BOOKS 

Not  long  ago,  in  an  afternoon's  ramble 
among  the  paintings  of  the  Metropolitan 
Museum,  I  became  interested  in  watching 
an  eager,  black-eyed  boy  who,  like  my- 
self, was  spending  his  holiday  in  the  gal- 
lery. Catching  sight  of  Winslow  Homer's 
"Gulf  Stream"  the  lad's  eyes  fairly  de- 
voured the  picture,  so  intense  was  his  in- 
terest in  it.  Seizing  his  father's  hand,  he 
dragged  the  man  over  to  the  painting 
and  urged,  "Papa,  what  does  it  mean? 
What  does  it  mean?" 

The  father,  it  was  plain,  had  neither 
the  information  nor  the  imagination  to 
guess  what  it  "meant,"  so  he  answered 
evasively,  "Oh  —  nothing.  It's  only  a 
picture." 


40      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Only  the  feeling  that  if  I  offered  ex- 
planations I  should  belittle  the  father's 
intelligence  in  the  child's  eyes  kept  me 
from  telling  the  bright  lad  what  he  wanted 
to  know  and  what  I  ached  to  explain.  The 
subject  of  the  picture  is  horrible,  to  be 
sure,  but  a  sturdy  eight-year-old  likes 
horrors,  and  if  I  had  had  a  chance  that 
boy  would  have  gone  away  full  of  ship- 
wrecks and  derelicts  and  sea  monsters, 
water  spouts  and  tropic  heat  and  the 
courage  of  men  who  go  down  to  the  sea  in 
ships.  Furthermore  he  would  have  per- 
suaded his  indulgent  father  —  the  man 
was  the  kindest  of  parents  in  intent,  one 
could  see  —  to  go  to  the  nearest  children's 
library  and  get  "The  Sea  and  its  Won- 
ders," "The  Book  of  the  Ocean,"  and 
other  books  which  would  have  interested 
the  boy  for  weeks. 

This  lad  was  years  older  than  the  baby 
I  have  in  mind  in  this  chapter,  but  the 


PICTURE  BOOKS  41 

story  illustrates  some  points  I  wish  to 
make  on  the  subject  of  picture  books. 

Your  baby  is  a  live  bundle  of  curiosity. 
If  you  begin  now  to  answer  his  questions 
as  fully  as  he  desires,  you  will  be  opening 
avenues  of  interest  that  will  give  him  de- 
light during  his  whole  life.  Besides,  you 
will  save  time  for  him.  A  few  years  hence 
he  will,  without  the  slightest  sign  of  brain 
fag,  outstrip  those  of  his  age  in  school. 
Further,  if  you  do  not  answer  his  ques- 
tions, if  through  ignorance  or  impatience 
you  snub  his  eager  interests  at  the  time 
they  are  first  manifested,  you  may  try  in 
vain  years  later  to  bring  back  to  the  big 
boy  that  appetite  for  learning  which  is 
insatiable  in  the  little  one. 

Again:  Your  baby  is  beginning  to  imi- 
tate everything  he  sees.  Of  course  you 
wish  to  protect  him  as  long  as  possible 
from  seeing  bad,  and  you  will  place  before 
him  a  great  many  good  and  interesting 


42      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

things  to  imitate,  knowing  that  thus  you 
will  be  helping  the  child  to  become  good 
and  happy  and  intelligent. 

Let  us  see  how  the  above  knowledge  is 
applied  by  the  majority  of  adults  when 
they  select  picture  books  for  children. 

Is  it  good  for  children  to  torture  animals, 
to  ridicule  the  maimed,  the  aged,  the  poor, 
to  play  sly  tricks  on  silly  parents,  to 
mock  at  politeness,  to  tease  servants,  to 
destroy  property,  to  make  fun  of  those  of 
different  race  or  creed  than  one's  own? 
Is  it  good  for  children  to  get  their  first 
acquaintance  with  beautiful  old  tales  of 
loyalty  and  courage  and  perseverance  in 
pictures  of  mocking  caricature?  Is  it 
good  to  paint  upon  the  child's  retentive 
mind  hideous  daubs  of  color  and  false 
distortion  of  line  —  in  short,  to  show  him 
the  worst  in  art  and  ethics  at  an  age 
when  discrimination  is  at  zero  and  inter- 
est in  every  detail  is  at  100? 


PICTURE  BOOKS  43 

Of  course  this  is  bad,  parents  answer 
promptly.  Yet  in  how  many  good  homes 
one  finds  books  patterned  after  the  comic- 
supplement  notion  that,  so  long  as  a  child 
is  amused  by  a  picture,  it  is  of  no  con- 
sequence that  he  laughs  at  the  representa- 
tion of  coarse  and  vulgar  practical  jokes, 
that  he  is  seeing  life  distorted,  is  becom- 
ing familiar  with  bad  art,  and  is  imbibing 
the  idea  that  to  be  virtuous  is  to  be  ridicu- 
lous. 

There  are  parents  thoughtful  enough 
to  keep  out  the  bad  who  do  not  go  far 
enough  in  providing  the  really  worth 
while.  The  commonest  fault  of  children's 
books  in  good  homes  is  insipidity.  We  try 
so  hard  to  stunt  the  children's  mental 
growth!  We  have  our  fixed  ideas  as  to 
the  interests  proper  to  childhood  and  we 
firmly  lock  away  subjects  presumably 
belonging  to  adults  only. 

There  is  a  wonderful  book  by  a  French 


44      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

artist  picturing  in  splendid  line  and  color 
the  life  and  times  of  Joan  of  Arc.  A  cer- 
tain five-year-old  of  my  acquaintance 
for  weeks  made  it  his  regular  occupation, 
in  the  last  hour  before  dinner  of  dark 
winter  afternoons,  to  get  out  this  book, 
spread  it  open  on  the  sitting-room  table, 
and,  climbing  upon  a  high  chair  to  kneel, 
elbows  on  table,  to  pore  over  the  pictures. 
The  France  of  the  fifteenth  century  in 
palace  and  cottage,  in  camp  and  cathe- 
dral, the  dress  of  the  people,  the  heraldic 
trappings,  the  stately  ceremonials,  the 
walled  cities  and  methods  of  warfare  — 
not  a  detail  in  this  carefully  studied  and 
wonderfully  executed  representation  of 
the  times  was  lost  on  the  small  boy,  who 
had  no  idea  that  he  was  gaining  a  back- 
ground for  such  an  appreciation  of  mediae- 
val history  as  few  big  boys  acquire. 

In  the  art  reference  room  of  our  public 
library  I  recently  had  occasion  to  ex- 


PICTURE  BOOKS  45 

amine  the  volumes  on  the  Middle  Ages  of 
an  expensive  French  work  by  Parmentier 
called  "Album  historique."  As  I  looked 
up  my  subject,  I  thought,  "What  a  pic- 
ture book,  this,  for  a  child's  library!" 
Here  one  saw,  from  prints  of  carvings 
on  Chartres  Cathedral,  exactly  how  the 
carpenter,  the  baker,  the  butcher,  the 
blacksmith  of  the  twelfth  century  worked 
at  their  daily  tasks.  One  could  enter  the 
house  of  a  tenth-century  family  by  way 
of  an  illustration  from  a  precious  man- 
uscript in  the  Bibliotheque  Nationale. 
The  children's  toys  and  games,  the  dresses 
and  jewels  and  combs  and  lamps,  all  the 
domestic  and  public  life  of  the  times  were 
profusely  illustrated  from  original  sources. 
Now,  of  course,  such  a  "picture  book" 
for  a  child  would  need  the  running  com- 
ment of  an  imaginative  and  pretty  well- 
informed  parent,  but  there  are  scores  of 
parents  able  to  supply  the  information  to 


46      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

one  who  would  conceive  the  subject  as 
within  the  child's  range. 

I  don't  seem  to  be  getting  to  that  baby, 
but  I  am  really  on  the  way.  I  am  eager  to 
emphasize  the  idea  that  we  need  not  dole 
out  to  little  children  tiny  sugar  pellets  of 
information  on  rigidly  limited  subjects, 
but  that  if  we  choose  pictures  of  vivid 
story-telling  quality  we  can  use  them  as 
points  of  departure  for  all  sorts  of  broad 
and  worth-while  interests. 

We  know  that  babies  are  very  early  in- 
terested in  Mother  Goose  jingles  and  in 
animals.  As  the  months  pass  they  watch 
earnestly,  then  imitate  the  people  about 
them  —  children  at  play,  grown  people 
at  work  driving  horses,  unloading  coal, 
sweeping  streets,  making  bread. 

We  have  found  that  the  youngest  chil- 
dren like  pictures  large  in  figure,  strong 
and  simple  in  coloring,  and  well-defined 
in  outline. 


PICTURE  BOOKS  47 

Every  one  at  all  acquainted  with  chil- 
dren knows  that  story-telling  pictures, 
having  much  action  and  a  good  deal  of 
clear  detail,  are  the  sort  that  appeal  to 
little  folks. 

Here,  then,  are  clues  to  the  selection  of 
the  first  picture  books  for  the  child.  We 
shall  not,  after  the  first  years,  confine  our 
choice  to  books  strictly  in  the  "picture 
books  for  children"  class,  but  will  fol- 
low the  lead  of  the  small  boy's  and  girl's 
questions  as  fast  as  our  slow  brains  can 
keep  up  with  their  nimble  wits. 

I  would,  then,  during  the  baby's  first 
three  or  four  years,  buy  Randolph  Calde- 
cott's  spirited  pictures  illustrating  the  old 
nursery  rhymes,  and  Kate  Greenaway's 
quaint  little  "Mother  Goose";  Beatrix 
Potter's  tiny  "Peter  Rabbit,"  "Benjamin 
Bunny,"  and  others  of  the  series  which 
small  children  literally  love  to  pieces; 
Leslie  Brooke's  droll  animals  in  "Johnny 


48      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Crow's  Garden,"  whose  fun  tickles  grown- 
ups as  much  as  it  does  the  children;  also 
Brooke's  "Three  Bears"  and  "Three 
Little  Pigs,"  the  enormous  popularity  of 
these  latter  among  our  public  library  chil- 
dren, by  the  way,  suggesting  that  other 
makers  of  children's  picture  books  would 
do  well  to  study  the  style  of  Brooke's 
illustrations.  I  would  include  Felicite 
Le  Fevre's  "The  Cock,  the  Mouse  and 
the  Little  Red  Hen";  and  Boyd  Smith's 
"Chicken  World."  In  the  animal  picture 
books  above,  the  artists,  while  giving 
human  touches  and  sometimes  human 
clothes  and  attitudes  to  the  creatures, 
have  kept  their  animals  essentially  true 
in  delineation  to  real  bears  and  pigs  and 
rabbits.  Kate  Greenaway's  "Under  the 
Window,"  Parkinson's  "Dutchie  Doings" 
(an  ugly  name  for  a  delightful  book  about 
Holland),  Lucas  and  Bedford's  "Four 
and  Twenty  Toilers  "   (one  of  the  most 


PICTURE  BOOKS  49 

perfect  of  all  on  this  list),  Boyd  Smith's 
"Farm  Book"  and  "Seashore  Book," 
with  a  few  of  the  best  foreign  books  whose 
stories  are  so  plainly  told  by  their  pictures 
that  the  lack  of  English  text  will  not 
matter  —  these  are  some  of  the  fine  pic- 
ture books  which  we  should  like  to  have 
every  little  child  own. 

By  means  of  the  above  we  shall  answer 
questions  and  raise  more  questions  about 
the  country  and  the  sea,  about  ships  and 
trains  and  the  work  of  all  sorts  of  useful 
"toilers. "  We  shall  see  the  quaint  villages 
in  which  little  English  and  French  and 
German  children  live,  the  canals  and 
dykes  and  windmills  and  wooden  shoes  of 
the  country  of  the  "Dutchie  Doings"; 
we  shall  establish  the  best  feeling  toward 
all  sorts  of  animal  friends;  we  shall  have 
gay  laughs  over  the  mishaps  of  Benjamin 
Bunny  and  Johnny  Crow's  guests  and 
little  Dutch  Jan;  and  all  this  variety  will 


50      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

have  been  given  in  pictures  so  good,  albeit 
so  simple,  that  the  seeds  for  that  subtle 
growth,  good  taste  in  art,  will  have  been 
sown. 


CHAPTER  V 

FAIRY   TALES 

Robert,  aged  two  and  a  half,  was  play- 
ing take  a  journey  in  a  boat.  The  parlor 
rug  was  the  boat  and  the  surrounding 
floor  the  water.  In  a  moment  of  forget- 
fulness  Robert  stepped  off  the  rug,  —  into 
the  water,  I  should  say.  So  vivid  was  the 
little  boy's  feeling  of  being  wet  to  the 
skin  that  he  was  inconsolable  until  mother 
brought  a  bath  towel  to  dry  the  unlucky 
feet. 

Charles  is  another  small  boy  of  my  ac- 
quaintance. One  day  he  was  a  coal  man, 
busily  shoveling  blocks  into  a  tiny  cart 
and  dumping  them  kerplunk  into  the  bin 
in  the  corner  of  grandma's  room.  Acci- 
dentally Charles  leaned  against  grand- 
ma's bed.  Hastily  drawing  away  his  hand 


52      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

he  exclaimed,  "Oh,  grandma,  see  that 
great  black  spot  on  the  counterpane!" 
Grandma,  absorbed  in  her  work,  absent- 
mindedly  replied,  "I  don't  see  any  spot, 
Charles."  "Why,  grandma!"  in  accents 
of  deep  reproach,  "I'm  a  coal  man  and 
my  hands  are  all  black!" 

Three-year-old  Harriet  is  one  of  my 
dearest  friends.  She  and  her  mother  come 
to  "spend  the  day"  at  my  house  some- 
times. On  one  of  these  happy  occasions 
Harriet,  after  playing  in  another  room  for 
a  while,  came  hurriedly  to  her  mother, 
anxiety  written  over  her  small  face,  and 
exclaimed,  "Oh,  mamma,  I'm  afraid  my 
baby  has  pneumonia!  Won't  you  please 
come  and  tell  me  what  to  do  for  her?" 

Mamma  promptly  laid  aside  her  sew- 
ing and  went  to  the  patient's  bedside. 
She  gravely  felt  Dolly's  pulse,  took  her 
temperature,  listened  to  her  breathing, 
and  finally  said  to  the  worried  parent, 


FAIRY  TALES  53 

"No,  Mrs.  Brown,  it  is  not  pneumonia, 
but  your  baby  has  a  very  bad  cold.  She 
has  quite  a  fever,  so  don't  put  many 
coverings  over  her.  We  will  give  her  very 
little  medicine,  but  you  must  have  plenty 
of  fresh  air  in  the  room  night  and  day. 
Keep  the  child  out  of  the  draft,  but  don't 
shut  the  window.  And  it  would  be  a 
good  thing  to  bring  in  a  gas  plate  and 
keep  some  lime-water  boiling  on  it  con- 
stantly. 

"Good-morning,  Mrs.  Brown.  Don't 
worry  about  the  baby.  I'll  look  in  again 
to-morrow." 

The  little  mother  listened  with  an  in- 
tensity of  concentration  worthy  a  nurse 
on  a  critical  case,  and  then  proceeded  to 
carry  out  orders  with  a  fidelity  to  detail 
which  doctors  would  be  fervently  thank- 
ful to  see  imitated  by  parents  of  real 
patients. 

Amused  and  interested  I  asked  Harriet's 


54      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

mother,  "Do  you  always  *  make-believe' 
as  seriously  and  sensibly  as  this?" 

"Yes,"  was  the  reply;  "it  is  just  as  easy 
to  tell  the  child  true  things  as  to  make  up 
a  lot  of  nonsense.  Because  her  play  is 
very  real  to  her,  she  is  vividly  interested, 
and  will  remember  every  word  I  say.  The 
knowledge  she  gets  may  be  very  useful  to 
her  sometime." 

When  I  have  something  important  to 
tell  a  person,  I  address  him  in  a  language 
he  will  understand.  If  he  and  I  have  no 
common  speech,  I  use  signs  or  pictures 
or  some  other  device  to  convey  my  mean- 
ing. 

Harriet  and  Charles  and  Robert  and 
other  little  people  of  their  age  are  living 
in  the  wonder  years,  when  the  language 
surest  of  appeal  to  their  hearts,  surest  of 
making  a  vivid  impression,  is  the  language 
of  fancy,  of  "make-believe."  The  time 
will  come  when  these  children  will  begin 


FAERY  TALES  55 

to  ask,  "Is  that  story  true?  Tell  me  a 
true  story  now!"  The  time  may  even 
come  when  they  will  be  interested  in  the 
scientific  study  of  those  natural  phenom- 
ena with  which  the  fairy  tale  takes  such 
liberties. 

At  first  it  is  the  Wonderland  animal 
that  interests  the  child,  tales  of  Benjamin 
Bunny,  Brer  Fox,  the  Wee  Small  Bear, 
the  Little  Red  Hen,  Johnny  Crow.  Later, 
true  stories  of  brave  dogs  and  cunning 
foxes  and  fierce  lions  become  more  in- 
teresting than  the  fanciful  tales  which 
the  child  gradually  finds  do  not  agree 
with  fact.  Last  of  all  comes  the  study  of 
zoology  as  a  science. 

Every  now  and  then  the  Gradgrinds 
come  to  the  fore  and  argue  with  heat 
against  telling  a  child  lies,  —  that  is, 
fairy  tales.  These  literal-minded  people 
have  no  conception  of  the  importance  of 
allowing  a  child  to  develop  in  nature's 


56      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

way,  nor  of  the  difference  between  lying 

—  the  intent  to  deceive  —  and  imagining 

—  the  "let 's  pretend  "  faculty,  more  valu- 
able to  the  adult,  even,  than  to  the  child. 

What  is  the  most  natural  way  for  the 
child  to  explain  certain  of  nature's  mani- 
festations? 

"Come,  little  Leaves,"  said  the  Wind  one  day, 
"Come  over  the  meadow  with  me  and  play; 
Put  on  your  dresses  of  red  and  gold 
For  Summer  has  gone  and  the  days  grow  cold." 

Soon  as  the  Leaves  heard  the  Wind's  loud  call 
Down  they  came  fluttering  one  and  all; 
Over  the  brown  fields  they  danced  and  flew, 
Singing  the  soft  little  songs  they  knew. 

Of  course  the  child  thinks  of  the  leaves 
as  little  live  creatures  putting  on  gayly 
colored  garments,  frolicking  with  their 
big  unseen  playmate,  the  Wind,  and 
finally  going  to  sleep  under  a  soft  white 
blanket  which  Winter  spreads  over  them. 
Of  course  he  thinks  of  Jack  Frost  as  paint- 


FAIRY  TALES  57 

ing  the  windows,  nipping  noses  and  fingers, 
icing  over  the  streams;  of  the  stars  as 
winking  at  little  boys  down  below;  of  the 
crescent  moon  as  a  golden  boat;  of  the 
breezes  as  whispering  to  him ;  of  the  shad- 
ows as  playing  with  him;  of  all  nature,  in 
short,  as  being  alive  in  a  vividly  personal 
way. 

Now,  this  is  exactly  the  way  the  child's 
remote  ancestors  felt,  ages  and  ages  back. 
The  myths  record  these  fancies  of  primi- 
tive peoples;  the  hero  tales  and  folk  tales 
and  legends  grew  out  of  the  myths;  the 
fairy  tale  is  a  modern  invention  after  the 
fashion  of  the  folk  tale;  and  all  the  stories 
of  this  sort  are  the  special  literary  form  of 
the  child,  answering  to  a  deep  and  right 
craving  of  his  nature. 

Apart  from  the  joy-giving  value  of  the 
fairy  tale  there  is  a  use  in  it  which  even 
the  Gradgrinds  ought  to  respect.  When 
the  Great  Teacher  told  the  parables  of  the 


58      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

sower,  the  house  built  upon  a  rock,  the 
wise  and  foolish  virgins,  we  understand 
that  he  was  inventing  stories  to  make 
clear  to  his  hearers  certain  spiritual  truths. 
Here  we  have  the  story  not  true  to  fact, 
but  true  to  truth. 

The  fairy  tale  has  been  called  a  poetic 
presentation  of  a  spiritual  truth.  When 
we  tell  our  little  ones  of  a  brave  and 
gentle  prince  who,  aided  by  fairies  and 
gnomes  and  friendly  talking  beasts,  rides 
through  space  on  North  Wind's  shoulder, 
slays  a  terrible  dragon,  and  releases  the 
beautiful  princess  from  the  wicked  ma- 
gician's castle,  what  is  the  staying  part 
of  the  story  we  have  told  in  this  fanciful 
language?  Is  it  not  that  courage  and 
gentleness  and  truth  make  one  strong  to 
fight  and  to  overcome  evil?  Surely  the 
sooner  we  get  such  an  idea  rooted  in  the 
child's  heart  the  nobler  child  he  will  be; 
and  if  the  way  to  his  heart  is  through  his 


FAIRY  TALES  59 

fancy,  why  stupidly  try  a  path  that  forbids 
rather  than  invites  the  child  to  walk  in  it? 

The  little  boy  who  uses  his  father's  cane 
for  a  horse,  who  is  now  a  hunter  in  a  deep 
forest,  a  minute  later  a  roaring  lion,  and 
next  is  playing  with  the  fishes  at  the 
bottom  of  the  ocean,  this  boy  we  do  not 
call  a  liar.  No  more  need  we  fear  the 
effect  of  fairy  tales  upon  his  character  if 
we  choose  those  in  which  the  child's  sym- 
pathies are  enlisted  for  the  brave  and  pure 
and  faithful  and  friendly,  and  his  con- 
tempt is  aroused  against  the  coward,  the 
sneak,  the  lazy,  the  ugly  in  character. 

Of  course  we  must  never  spoil  these 
artistic  stories  by  rubbing  in  their  les- 
son. Let  the  children  have  the  pure  joy 
of  their  playful  fancy  without  our  tag- 
ging on  at  the  end,  "Now  the  moral  of 
this  story  is  — "  The  fable,  however,  can 
sometimes  be  tellingly  used  for  pointing 
a  moral  to  a  naughty  small  person. 


60      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

One  day  when  I  was  a  tiny  girl,  with 
toys  from  my  emptied  play  cupboard 
strewn  about  me,  my  baby  sister,  creep- 
ing near,  began  playing  with  a  toy'I  had 
not  thought  of  wanting  that  morning.  I 
snatched  the  toy  away  from  little  sister 
just  as  my  dear  mother  passed  through 
the  room.  Not  in  a  frowning  way,  but 
with  a  gentle,  humorous  twinkle,  mother 
let  fall  the  remark,  "Dog  in  the  manger!" 
I  dropped  that  toy  as  if  it  had  scorched, 
for  did  I  not  see  myself  as  the  ugly,  snarl- 
ing dog  who  could  not  eat  hay  himself, 
yet  would  not- allow  the  patient,  hungry 
cow  to  come  near  her  well-earned  supper? 

I  have  spoken  of  the  joy  value  and  the 
ethical  value  of  the  fairy  tale.  I  wish  I 
could  make  all  the  world  feel  its  value  to 
the  imagination  —  the  importance  of  an 
imagination  in  this  day  of  worship  of  the 
material.  It  takes  imagination  to  believe 
in  God,  in  the  soul,  in  immortality.  Peo- 


FAIRY  TALES  61 

pie  without  imagination  or  with  starved 
imaginations  lack  the  fineness  and  the 
infinite  variety  that  make  life  interesting 
to  them,  and  themselves  interesting  to 
others.  Imagination  is  needed  not  only  by 
the  poet,  the  artist,  the  musician,  but  is 
essential  to  the  leader  in  practical  lines  — 
in  business  management,  bridge-building, 
railroading.  How  could  one  build  a  bridge 
without  first  having  a  picture  of  the  struc- 
ture in  his  mind  —  imagining  it,  in  short? 
There  is  another  argument  for  the 
wonder  stories  in  the  joy  they  will  give 
the  man,  years  hence,  when  he  looks  at 
pictures,  listens  to  music,  reads  poems 
which  demand  for  their  complete  apprecia- 
tion an  understanding  of  the  old  myths  to 
which  they  allude.  No  grubbing  through 
classical  dictionaries  will  make  up  to  the 
man  for  the  joy  he  will  miss  if  these  allu- 
sions do  not  call  up  to  him  beautiful  old 
stories  beloved  in  his  childhood. 


62      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

There  is  still  more  to  be  said  for  the 
wonder  stories.  The  picturesque  vocabu- 
lary of  little  children  fed  on  the  best;  the 
engaging  brightness  of  mind  that  makes 
their  talk  a  delight  to  an  adult  not  too 
dull  to  appreciate  its  poetry;  the  happy 
effect  upon  their  play  shown  when  the 
children  dramatize  the  fanciful  tales  — 
these  are  other  worthwhile  results  of  fa- 
miliarizing children  with  the  literature  of 
Wonderland. 

In  closing,  a  word  or  two  of  caution. 
We  must  remember  that  there  are  many 
unwholesome  fairy  tales,  just  as  there  are 
bad  pictures;  that  we  must  shield  a  high- 
strung  child  from  the  too  fearful;  that 
we  must  be  watchful  lest  the  excessively 
imaginative  child  be  allowed  a  too-ex- 
clusive diet  of  wonder  stories,  just  as  we 
would  wish  to  steep  in  fanciful  literature 
the  occasional  youngster  of  the  very  mat- 
ter-of-fact type. 


CHAPTER  VI 

BIBLE   STORIES 

Two  small  boys  had  been  spending  the 
week-end  at  grandma's  —  their  first  over- 
night visit  away  from  mother.  As  they 
were  being  put  to  bed  on  Sunday  night, 
one  of  the  aunties  remarked,  "I've  a  nice 
story  to  read  to  you  after  you  are  tucked 
in." 

The  youngsters  looked  a  bit  suspi- 
ciously at  the  Bible  in  auntie's  hand. 
That  book  was  associated  with  long 
sitting  still  in  church,  with  texts  to  be 
committed,  with  moral  and  religious  talks 
given  by  not  always  skillful  Sunday- 
School  teachers.  However,  auntie's  ideas 
of  a  good  story  always  had  coincided  ex- 
actly with  their  own,  so  they  were  ready 
to  give  the  Bible  a  hearing  at  least. 


64      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Auntie  opened  to  the  Book  of  Esther. 
Pencil  marks  here  and  there  indicated 
for  omission  some  unimportant  parts;  this 
in  order  that,  at  one  not  too  long  reading, 
the  whole  of  the  story  might  be  given. 

Here  is  the  way  auntie  began  to  read :  — 

Now  it  came  to  pass  in  the  days  of  Ahasu- 
erus  .  .  .  when  the  king  Ahasuerus  sat  on  the 
throne  of  his  kingdom,  which  was  in  Shushan 
the  palace,  in  the  third  year  of  his  reign,  he 
made  a  feast  unto  all  his  princes  and  his  serv- 
ants; the  power  of  Persia  and  Media,  the 
nobles  and  princes  of  the  provinces  being  be- 
fore him  .  .  . 

When  he  showed  the  riches  of  his  glorious 
kingdom  and  the  honour  of  his  excellent 
majesty  many  days,  even  an  hundred  and 
fourscore  days. 

And  when  these  days  were  expired,  the 
king  made  a  great  feast  unto  all  the  people 
that  were  present  in  Shushan  the  palace, 
both  unto  great  and  small,  seven  days,  in  the 
court  of  the  garden  of  the  king's  palace; 
Where  were  white,  green  and  blue  hangings 
fastened  with  cords  of  fine  linen  to  purple  and 


BIBLE  STORIES  65 

silver  rings  and  pillars  of  marble;  the  beds 
were  of  gold  and  silver,  upon  a  pavement  of 
red  and  blue  and  white  and  black  marble. 
And  they  gave  them  drink  in  vessels  of  gold 

—  the  vessels  being  diverse  one  from  another 

—  and  royal  wine  in  abundance,  according  to 
the  state  of  the  king. 

At  the  beginning  of  the  reading  there 
had  been  a  good  deal  of  rustling  in  the 
bed.  It  was  difficult  to  fall  in  at  once  with 
the  notion  that  the  Bible  could  be  inter- 
esting enough  for  close  attention!  Soon, 
however,  the  moving  about  ceased  and  to 
the  end  of  the  story  such  stillness  reigned 
as  made  auntie  glance  up  once  in  a  while 
to  see  if  the  boys  had  dropped  off  to 
Dreamland.  Not  a  bit  of  it!  Who  could 
think  of  sleep  while  such  pictures  of 
Oriental  magnificence  were  being  woven 
before  one's  eyes  by  those  splendidly 
colorful  words  ?  A  long  sigh  of  complete 
satisfaction,  the  same  sign  of  reluctant 
coming  back  to  earth  as  greeted  auntie's 


66      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

most  successful  fairy  tales,  was  evidence 
of  the  boys'  entire  approval  of  the  reading. 
Now,  let  us  put  beside  the  above  the 
Old  Testament's  own  language  unaltered 
except  by  omission,  the  following  version, 
which,  be  it  noted,  is  exceptionally  good 
among  the  children's  retold  Bibles  which 
flood  the  market:  — 

There  was  a  gentle  Jewish  girl  named 
Esther  who  had  been  left  an  orphan  very 
young  and  was  brought  up  by  her  kind  rela- 
tion Mordecai,  who  was  one  of  the  Jews  who 
had  not  gone  back  to  Jerusalem,  but  still 
lived  in  Persia. 

One  day  there  came  a  messenger  from  the 
king  to  carry  away  poor  Esther  from  home. 
The  king  wanted  all  the  maidens  in  his  land 
to  be  brought  together,  that  he  might  choose 
the  most  beautiful  of  them  all  for  his  queen, 
and  the  others  would  be  kept  for  slaves.  All 
the  other  maidens  dressed  themselves  up,  and 
painted  themselves  to  try  to  look  beautiful; 
but  Esther  did  not  ask  for  any  ornaments, 
she  only  put  on  what  she  was  ordered  to  wear. 
Yet  she  looked  so  much  the  most  lovelv  of 


BIBLE  STORIES  67 

them  all,  in  her  modest  quietness,  that  the 
king  chose  her  and  married  her,  and  set  the 
crown  on  her  head,  and  made  her  his  queen. 
But  she  had  a  sad  life  though  she(was  queen. 
She  was  always  shut  up  and  could  not  see  her 
kind  friend  Mordecai,  and  she  could  not  even 
go  to  her  husband  without  his  leave,  or  she 
would  have  been  put  to  death. 

How  tame,  how  colorless,  how  lacking 
in  vividness,  in  poetry,  in  magnificence  is 
this  gentle  simplification!  And  why  was 
it  attempted?  Because  a  child  is  not  able 
to  define  every  word  in  the  original?  Who 
cares  if  he  is  n't?  Not  he,  certainly.  His 
enjoyment  does  not  depend  upon  defini- 
tions. The  words  he  does  understand,  and 
the  sound  of  those  he  does  not,  paint  for 
him  pictures  the  more  alluring  for  a  vague- 
ness that  leaves  all  sorts  of  splendors  to 
the  imagination. 

"An  hundred  and  fourscore  days"  — 
what  a  very,  very  long  feast,  and  how  rich 
and  mighty  must  have  been  the  king  who 


68      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

could  feed  and  amuse  his  guests  so  long 
and  so  magnificently !  Is  our  small  boy  at 
all  bothered  that  he  does  not  know  ex- 
actly how  many  "fourscore"  days  were? 

It  is  not  the  purpose  of  this  chapter  to 
discuss  the  Bible  as  a  theological  work 
or  religious  guide.  For  such  use  I  would 
refer  parents  to  Mrs.  Louise  Seymour 
Houghton's  "Telling  Bible  Stories  to 
Children"  and  Dean  Hodges's  books  for 
parents  and  children.  Of  course,  some 
will  think  one  or  both  of  these  writers 
too  modern,  while  others  will  complain 
of  their  being  too  traditional.  They  will 
at  least  be  suggestive  to  adults  puzzled 
about  what  to  teach  the  children,  since 
modern  scholarship  has  changed  our  un- 
derstanding of  some  parts  of  the  Bible. 

Whatever  our  viewpoint  on  Biblical 
doctrine,  we  are  waking  up  to  the  idea  that, 
since  the  Bible  is  woven  into  the  litera- 
ture and  history  of  our  race,  familiarity 


BIBLE  STORIES  69 

with  it  is  exceedingly  important  to  our 
young  people,  if  we  would  have  them  ap- 
preciate to  the  full  the  best  things  in  the 
life  of  the  mind  and  spirit.  If  we  can,  by 
the  interest  we  kindle  in  little  children, 
prepare  them  to  grow  up  loving  those 
best  things,  by  all  means  we  will  do 
this. 

We  all  agree  that  the  Bible  contains  a 
wonderful  collection  of  stories  suited  to 
the  taste  of  young  and  old.  We  know 
that  no  finer  literature  exists,  that  poetry 
and  pathos,  grandeur  and  tender  beauty, 
all  the  thoughts  of  the  human  heart  and 
the  glory  of  earth  and  heaven  are  ex- 
pressed in  language  matchlessly  vivid  and 
simple.  Will  any  one  give  a  good  reason 
why  this  language  should  be  turned  into 
commonplace  English  for  children  who 
particularly  delight  in  rhythmical,  poetic 
sound?  Only  the  tiny  children  need  the 
Bible  simplified,  except  by  omission. 


70      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Do  you  know  why  librarians  often  find 
the  children  of  clever  parents  reading 
inane  and  foolish  stories,  counting  as 
too  great  a  mental  effort  the  books  their 
fathers  and  mothers  adored  in  their  early 
youth?  It  is  largely  because  of  this  mania 
for  simplification  that  has  fallen  upon  the 
land  in  our  time.  It  is  very  illogical  for  us 
to  be  disappointed  in  a  twelve-year-old 
who  turns  from  books  rich  in  allusion, 
style,  and  breadth,  if,  for  the  greater  part 
of  those  twelve  years,  we  have  carefully 
guarded  him  from  mental  stretching, 
which  an  unspoiled,  active-minded  child 
really  enjoys.  In  our  mistaken  kindness 
we  make  healthy  minds  become  soft  for 
lack  of  exercise. 

No  great  book  has  yet  been  written 
in  "first-reader"  English  —  nor  yet  in 
"second -reader"  or  "third-reader."  Let 
the  little  ones  grow  up  in  hearing  of  a  rich 
and  varied  speech  and  the  big  ones  will 


BIBLE  STORIES  71 

not  be  discouraged  with  the  first  pages  of 
a  nobly  written  book. 

For  every  reason  make  the  Bible  lov- 
ingly familiar  to  the  children.  Choose 
those  of  the  stories  best  suited  to  their 
liking.  Make  the  reading  a  special  treat, 
never  a  compulsory  duty.  Do  not  let  the 
children  go  to  Sunday-School  until  you 
have  satisfied  yourself  that  their  love  for 
the  Book  will  be  enhanced,  not  killed  by 
unskillful  teaching. 

And  carry  to  the  consideration,  not  only 
of  this  but  of  all  other  splendidly  written 
stories,  the  conviction  that  children  enjoy 
much  and  get  much  from  many  things 
which  they  do  not  wholly  understand  at 
the  first  hearing;  and  that  the  relation  be- 
tween the  reading  taste  of  six  and  twelve 
years  may  be  as  definite  as  is  the  relation 
between  the  brains,  skill,  and  industry  of 
the  farmer  and  the  kind  of  crops  he  raises. 
There  is  some  uncertainty  about  results 


72      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

in  both  fields,  I  admit,  but  in  crops  and 
children  it  is  far  more  often  bad  manage- 
ment than  bad  luck  that  is  responsible  for 
poor  products. 


CHAPTER  VII 

STORIES   THAT   MIGHT   BE   TRUE: 
SOME   "dON'ts" 

Thus  far  I  have  tried  to  make  my  sugges- 
tions follow  the  principle  that  the  best 
way  to  keep  out  the  bad  is  to  fill  up  mind 
space  with  good.  I  have  used  the  positive 
rather  than  the  negative,  the  "Do"  in- 
stead of  the  "Don't"  method  in  offering 
advice. 

This,  however,  must  be  a  chapter  of 
"Don'ts."  We  are  to  take  up  the  "Story 
that  might  be  true,"  child  fiction  corre- 
sponding to  the  realistic  novel  of  the 
adult. 

In  their  stories  of  real  boys  and  girls 
who  have  no  dealings  with  fairies,  but 
who  do  (supposedly)  possible  and  proba- 
ble things,  our  small  people  live  through, 


74      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

in  imagination,  many  new  experiences. 
They  adopt  the  ideas  of  their  story  boy  or 
girl,  they  become  interested  in  the  things 
that  interest  the  story  children. 

Now,  what  sort  of  things  are  many 
writers  to-day  making  interesting  to  chil- 
dren? 

Foremost  among  the  stories  which  most 
people  pronounce  "safe"  and  many  call 
"charming"  is  the  type  dubbed  by  an 
"Outlook"  writer  "the  little  child  shall 
lead  them"  story. 

I  have  in  mind  one  in  which  a  mother- 
less eight-year-old,  brought  up  in  a  board- 
ing-house, manages  her  father's  affairs  — 
and  the  landlady's  and  the  boarders'  — 
with  an  executive  ability  that  would  put 
many  a  grown  woman  to  blush.  She 
divides  her  father's  weekly  salary  into 
neat  piles  of  board  money,  clothes  money, 
money  to  go  into  the  bank,  etc.  She 
coaxes  the  irate  cook  into  good  humor, 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    75, 

placates  the  grouchy  boarder  and  soothes 
the  worried  landlady  into  grateful  relief. 
When  her  father  is  unmanned  by  an  ac- 
cusation of  forgery,  this  capable  child  bids 
him  put  on  his  hat  and  accompany  her  to 
the  lawyer  where  she  ably  states  the  case 
for  her  parent.  She  is  the  means  by  which 
this  same  unappreciated  poet  father  finds 
the  road  to  fame,  and  the  story  ends  with 
a  picture  of  our  heroine  of  eight  embark- 
ing for  Europe  amid  such  an  avalanche 
of  flowers  that  other  passengers,  seeing 
the  floral  tributes  coming  aboard,  wonder 
if  a  famous  opera  singer  is  traveling  on  the 
steamer. 

Another  story  is  of  an  eight-year-old 
boy  whose  career  is  one  round  of  sen- 
sational benevolence.  Out  of  a  list  of 
shining  deeds  too  long  to  quote  in  full  I 
instance  the  hero's  effecting  a  reconcili- 
ation between  a  father  and  son  long  es- 
tranged, his  patching  up  a  lover's  quarrel, 


76      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

bringing  a  neglected  actor  to  the  atten- 
tion of  an  important  manager,  averting  a 
factory  strike,  and  saving  from  a  burning 
building  a  roomful  of  children. 

There  are  stories  of  children  who  bring 
together  father  and  mother  who  have 
separated;  who  win  to  devoted  mother- 
hood women  too  absorbed  in  society 
to  remember  their  children's  existence. 
There  is  a  tale  of  a  four-year-old  who  is 
the  unconscious  means  of  bringing  to  his 
better  senses  a  man  who,  having  been 
jilted  by  the  child's  mother  years  before, 
had  buried  himself  from  the  world  with  a 
pistol  handy  for  the  sucide  he  kept  in 
mind  as  a  possible  means  of  escape  from 
his  thoughts. 

You  are  horrified  that  parents  buy  such 
books.  You  would  be  more  astonished  if 
I  were  to  tell  you  not  only  who  buy  but 
who  write  stories  like  these.  I  refuse  to 
advertise  the  stuff  by  naming  titles,  but 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    77 

most  of  the  above  are  the  work  of  authors 
in  excellent  standing. 

Let  the  children  have  real  fairy  tales, 
by  all  means.  But  by  all  means  insist  that 
their  stories  of  real  life  be  true  to  life,  to 
the  wholesome,  natural,  simple  life  you 
are  trying  to  insure  to  your  children. 

There  is  much  evil  in  this  good  world  of 
ours.  Our  children  need  to  know  what  is 
bad  in  order  to  avoid  it.  They  must  be 
helped  to  grow  strong  to  resist  temptation. 
The  stories  in  which  they  live  vicariously 
the  life  of  the  heroes  or  heroines  may  be 
of  immense  help  in  illustrating  the  brave 
way  to  face  and  conquer  difficulties. 

There  are  many  sorts  of  evil,  however, 
from  the  knowledge  of  which  little  chil- 
dren should  be  shielded  if  possible.  The 
misfortunes  or  wickednesses  of  adult  life, 
unhappy  marriages,  false  lovers,  brutal 
fathers,  silly  mothers,  jealousy,  forgery, 
burglaries  —  you  will  probably  think  it 


78      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

absurd  for  me  to  beg  you  to  protect  chil- 
dren from  stories  in  which  these  things 
figure.  But  since  writers  of  children's 
stories  will  drag  in  such  themes,  and 
since  friends  and  relatives  more  generous 
than  wise  will  continue  to  choose  your 
children's  Christmas  books  by  covers 
rather  than  contents,  this  warning  is  not 
unnecessary. 

Books  about  child  characters  who  are 
naughty  in  childlike  ways,  —  these  are 
in  a  different  class;  but  even  here  be  care- 
ful. To  tell  a  story  because  there  are  so 
many  interesting  and  happy  things  in  the 
world  to  bring  to  children,  this  should 
be  the  reason  for  writing  a  child's  book. 
Neither  the  story  that  paints  a  naughty 
child  as  a  solemn  warning  for  the  young, 
nor  the  one  (so  amusing  to  the  adult)  that 
describes  the  pranks  of  the  picturesque 
bad  boy  of  the  town  is  desirable  reading 
for  little  children. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    79 

There  are  many  other  "Don'ts"  for  us 
to  remember.  The  Sunday-School  story 
of  a  generation  ago  is  dying  out.  Do 
not  revive  it  under  the  impression  that 
the  priggish'  heroine  will  be  a  wholesome 
example  for  your  child.  Remember,  too, 
that  many  books  do  not  practice  what 
they  preach.  There  are  authors  who 
write  against  snobbishness  and  money 
worship  who  yet  make  very  evident  their 
sense  of  the  superiority  of  those  elect  be- 
ings who,  from  silken  heights,  graciously 
bestow  alms  upon  the  child  in  the  gutter. 

Avoid  stories  in  which  children  begin 
early  to  lead  the  life  of  society  women ;  in 
which  the  author,  pretending  tp  write  for 
children,  gives  the  impression  that  she 
is  winking  at  an  adult  over  the  child's 
"cute"  blunders  of  speech  and  under- 
standing. 

Do  not  choose  stories  of  swift  and  start- 
ling action  —  such  will  cultivate  the  taste 


80      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

for  the  sensational,  the  newspaper  head- 
line sort  of  writing. 

And  finally,  do  not  be  too  literal  in 
applying  the  above  "Don'ts."  We  some- 
times find  in  a  story,  beautiful  on  the 
whole,  a  minor  episode  which  we  wish  the 
author  had  left  out.  We  must  learn  to 
judge  the  effect  of  the  book  as  a  whole,  to 
have  a  sense  of  proportion  which  will  tell 
us  whether  the  final  impression  of  the 
story  upon  the  child  will  be  good  and 
true  or  whether  its  less  desirable  features 
will  make  the  stronger  impression. 

The  largest  number  of  all  the  not 
worth-while  books  for  children  are  those 
in  which  one  cannot  point  out  features  so 
plainly  objectionable  that  any  thoughtful 
parent  would  recognize  their  harmfulness. 
The  soft,  "safe,"  inane,  sugar-and-water 
story  that  leads  nowhere,  that  has  no 
positive  qualities,  bad  or  good,  that  con- 
sumes good  time,  that  opens  no  windows 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE     81 

in  the  child's  mind,  —  this  story  also  let 
us  avoid.  Our  children  are  too  good  for 
such  mental  pap.  They  deserve  the  best, 
the  stories  of  "some  particular  good" 
rather  than  those  of  "no  particular  harm" 
—  this  latter  being  the  stock  defense  put 
up  against  the  librarian  who  objects  to 
spending  public  money  on  books  that 
waste  time  and  atrophy  the  mind.  When 
she  contemplates  buying  a  chair  or  a 
carpet  or  a  tablecloth  does  any  woman 
accept  indifferently  a  "not-bad"  article  if 
the  very  best  of  its  kind  is  within  reach 
of  her  purse?  How  is  it  that  we  seem  so 
indifferent  to  the  furnishing  of  our  chil- 
dren's minds  and  hearts  when  we  spend 
so  much  care  upon  the  furnishing  of  their 
physical  surroundings?  When  the  child 
reads  to  himself  we  cannot  prevent  his 
devouring  some  commonplace  books,  but 
while  his  reading  is  in  our  hands  let  us  see 
that  he  knows  the  best  and  only  the  best. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

STOKIES   THAT   MIGHT   BE   TRUE! 
HOW   TO   CHOOSE   THEM 

It  will  be  a  relief  to  return  to  the  empha- 
sis of  the  good  after  having  dwelt  so  long 
upon  depressing  "Don'ts." 

To  bring  out  the  positive  qualities 
which  we  should  like  to  find  in  every 
story  for  little  children  I  can  think  of  no 
better  plan  than,  first,  to  quote  bodily  a 
chapter  from  a  book  which  possesses  prac- 
tically everything  desirable,  and  next,  to 
call  attention  to  the  book's  good  features 
point  by  point. 

The  story  I  have  in  mind  is  called  "The 
Dutch  Twins."  After  a  little  introduc- 
tion of  Kit  and  Kat,  the  Twins,  the 
author  begins :  — 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    83 
CHAPTER  ONE 

THE  DAY  THEY  WENT  FISHING  * 

One  summer  morning,  very  early,  Vrouw 
Vedder  opened  the  door  of  her  little  Dutch 
kitchen  and  stepped  out. 

She  looked  across  the  road  which  ran  by 
the  house,  across  the  canal  on  the  other  side, 
across  the  level  green  fields  that  lay  beyond, 
clear  to  the  blue  rim  of  the  world,  where  the 
sky  touches  the  earth.  The  sky  was  very  blue; 
and  the  great,  round,  shining  face  of  the  sun 
was  just  peering  over  the  tops  of  the  trees,  as 
she  looked  out. 

Vrouw  Vedder  listened.  The  roosters  in 
the  barnyard  were  crowing,  the  ducks  in  the 
canal  were  quacking,  and  all  the  little  birds 
in  the  fields  were  singing  for  joy.  Vrouw 
Vedder  hummed  a  slow  little  tune  of  her  own, 
as  she  went  back  into  her  kitchen. 

Kit  and  Kat  were  still  asleep  in  their  little 
cupboard  bed.  She  gave  them  each  a  kiss. 
The  Twins  opened  their  eyes  and  sat  up. 

"O  Kit  and  Kat,"  said  Vrouw  Vedder, 
"the  sun  is  up,  the  birds  are  all  awake  and 
1  Copyright,  1911,  by  Lucy  Fitch  Perkins. 


84      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

singing,  and  grandfather  is  going  fishing  to- 
day. If  you  will  hurry,  you  may  go  with  him ! 
He  is  coming  at  six  o'clock;  so  pop  out  of  bed 
and  get  dressed.  I  will  put  some  lunch  for  you 
in  the  yellow  basket,  and  you  may  dig  worms 
for  bait  in  the  garden.  Only  be  sure  not  to 
step  on  the  young  cabbages  that  father 
planted." 

Kit  and  Kat  bounced  out  of  bed  in  a  min- 
ute. Their  mother  helped  them  put  on  their 
clothes  and  new  wooden  shoes.  Then  she 
gave  them  each  a  bowl  of  bread  and  milk 
for  their  breakfast.  They  ate  it  sitting  on 
the  kitchen  doorstep. 

This  is  a  picture  of  Kit  and  Kat  digging 
worms.  You  see  they  did  just  as  their  mother 
said,  and  did  not  step  on  the  young  cabbages. 
They  sat  on  them,  instead.  But  that  was  an 
accident. 

Kit  dug  the  worms,  and  Kat  put  them  into 
a  basket,  with  some  earth  in  it  to  make  them 
feel  at  home. 

When  grandfather  came,  he  brought  a  large 
fishing-rod  for  himself  and  two  little  ones  for 
the  Twins.  There  was  a  little  hook  on  the  end 
of  each  line. 

Vrouw  Vedder  kissed  Kit  and  Kat  good-bye. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    85 

"Mind  grandfather,  and  don't  fall  into  the 
water,"  she  said. 

Grandfather  and  the  Twins  started  off  to- 
gether down  the  long  road  beside  the  canal. 

The  house  where  the  Twins  lived  was  right 
beside  the  canal.  Their  father  was  a  gardener, 
and  his  beautiful  rows  of  cabbages  and  beets 
and  onions  stretched  in  long  lines  across  the 
level  fields  by  the  roadside. 

Grandfather  lived  in  a  large  town,  a  little 
way  beyond  the  farm  where  the  Twins  lived. 
He  did  not  often  have  a  holiday,  because  he 
carried  milk  to  the  doors  of  the  people  in  the 
town,  every  morning  early.  Sometime  I  will 
tell  you  how  he  did  it;  but  I  must  not  tell  you 
now,  because  if  I  do,  I  can't  tell  you  about 
their  going  fishing. 

This  morning,  grandfather  carried  his  rod 
and  the  lunch-basket.  Kit  and  Kat  carried 
the  basket  of  worms  between  them,  and  their 
rods  over  their  shoulders,  and  they  were  all 
three  very  happy. 

They  walked  along  ever  so  far,  beside  the 
canal;  then  turned  to  the  left  and  walked 
along  a  path  that  ran  from  the  canal  across 
the  green  fields  to  what  looked  like  a  hill. 

But  it  was  n't  a  hill  at  all,  really,  because 


86      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

there  are  n't  any  hills  in  Holland.  It  was  a 
long,  long  wall  of  earth,  very  high  —  oh,  as 
high  as  a  house,  or  even  higher!  And  it  had 
sloping  sides. 

There  is  such  a  wall  of  earth  all  around  the 
country  of  Holland,  where  the  Twins  live. 
There  has  to  be  a  wall,  because  the  sea  is 
higher  than  the  land.  If  there  were  no  walls 
to  shut  out  the  sea,  the  whole  country  would 
be  covered  with  water;  and  if  that  were  so, 
then  there  would  n't  be  any  Holland,  or  any 
Holland  Twins,  or  any  story.  So  you  see  it 
was  very  lucky  for  the  Twins  that  the  wall  was 
there.   They  called  it  a  dyke. 

Grandfather  and  Kit  and  Kat  climbed  the 
dyke.  When  they  reached  the  top,  they  sat 
down  a  few  minutes  to  rest  and  look  at  the 
great  blue  sea.  Grandfather  sat  in  the  middle, 
with  Kit  on  one  side,  and  Kat  on  the  other; 
and  the  basket  of  worms  and  the  basket  of 
lunch  were  there,  too. 

They  saw  a  great  ship  sail  slowly  by,  mak- 
ing a  cloud  of  smoke. 

"Where  do  the  ships  go,  grandfather?" 
asked  Kit. 

"To  America,  and  England,  and  China, 
and  all  over  the  world,"  said  grandfather. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    87 

"Why?"  asked  Kat.  Kat  almost  always 
said  "Why?"  and  when  she  didn't,  Kit 
did. 

"To  take  flax  and  linen  from  the  mills  of 
Holland  to  make  dresses  for  little  girls  in 
other  countries,"  said  grandfather. 

"Is  that  all?"  asked  Kit. 

"They  take  cheese  and  herring,  bulbs  and 
butter,  and  lots  of  other  things  besides,  and 
bring  back  to  us  wheat  and  meat  and  all  sorts 
of  good  things  from  the  lands  across  the  sea." 

"  I  think  I  '11  be  a  sea  captain  when  I  'm  big," 
said  Kit. 

"So  will  I,"  said  Kat. 

"Girls  can't,"  said  Kit. 

But  grandfather  shook  his  head  and  said: 

"You  can't  tell  what  a  girl  may  be  by  the 
time  she 's  four  feet  and  a  half  high  and  is 
called  Katrina.  There 's  no  telling  what  girls 
will  do'  anyway.  But,  children,  if  we  stay 
here  we  shall  not  catch  any  fish." 

So  they  went  down  the  other  side  of  the 
dyke  and  out  onto  a  little  pier  that  ran  from 
the  sandy  beach  into  the  water. 

Grandfather  showed  them  how  to  bait 
their  hooks.  Kit  baited  Kat's  for  her,  be- 
cause Kat  said  it  made  her  all  wriggly  inside 


88      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

to  do  it.  She  did  not  like  it.  Neither  did  the 
worm! 

They  all  sat  down  on  the  end  of  the  pier. 
Grandfather  sat  on  the  very  end  and  let  his 
wooden  shoes  hang  down  over  the  water;  but 
he  made  Kit  and  Kat  sit  with  their  feet  stuck 
straight  out  in  front  of  them,  so  they  just 
reached  to  the  edge,  —  "So  you  can't  fall  in," 
said  grandfather. 

They  dropped  their  hooks  into  the  water, 
and  sat  very  still,  waiting  for  a  bite.  The  sun 
climbed  higher  and  higher  in  the  sky,  and  it 
grew  hotter  and  hotter  on  the  pier.  The  flies 
tickled  Kat's  nose  and  made  her  sneeze. 

"Keep  still,  can't  you?"  said  Kit  crossly. 
"You'll  scare  the  fish.  Girls  don't  know  how 
to  fish,  anyway." 

Pretty  soon  Kat  felt  a  queer  little  jerk  on 
her  line.   She  was  perfectly  sure  she  did. 

Kat  squealed  and  jerked  her  rod.  She 
jerked  it  so  hard  that  one  foot  flew  right  up 
in  the  air,  and  one  of  her  new  wooden  shoes 
went  —  splash  —  right  into  the  water! 

But  that  wasn't  the  worst  of  it!  Before 
you  could  say  Jack  Robinson,  Kat's  hook 
flew  around  and  caught  in  Kit's  clothes  and 
pricked  him. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE     89 

Kit  jumped  and  said  "Ow!"  And  then  — 
no  one  could  ever  tell  how  it  happened  — 
there  was  Kit  in  the  water,  too,  splashing  like 
a  young  whale,  with  Kat's  hook  still  holding 
fast  to  his  clothes  in  the  back! 

Grandfather  jumped  then,  too,  you  may 
be  sure.  He  caught  hold  of  Kat's  rod  and 
pulled  hard  and  called  out,  "Steady  there, 
steady!" 

And  in  one  minute  there  was  Kit  in  the 
shallow  water  beside  the  pier,  puffing  and 
blowing  like  a  grampus ! 

Grandfather  reached  down  and  pulled  him 
up. 

When  Kit  was  safely  on  the  pier,  Kat 
threw  her  arms  around  his  neck,  though  the 
water  was  running  down  in  streams  from  his 
hair  and  eyes  and  ears. 

"O  Kit,"  she  said,  "I  truly  thought  it  was 
a  fish  on  my  line  when  I  jumped!" 

"Just  like  a  g-g-girl,"  said  Kit.  "They 
don't  know  how  to  f-f-fish."  You  see  his  teeth 
were  chattering,  because  the  water  was  cold. 

"Well,  anyway,"  said  Kat,  "I  caught  more 
than  you  did.   I  caught  you!" 

Then  Kat  thought  of  something  else.  She 
shook  her  finger  at  Kit. 


90      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

"O  Kit,"  she  said,  "mother  told  you  not  to 
fall  into  the  water!" 

"'T-t-twas  all  your  fault,"  roared  Kit. 
"Y-y-you  began  it!  Anyway,  where  is  your 
new  wooden  shoe?" 

"Where  are  both  of  yours?"  screamed  Kat. 

Sure  enough,  where  were  they?  No  one 
had  thought  about  shoes,  because  they  were 
thinking  so  hard  about  Kit. 

They  ran  to  the  end  of  the  pier  and  looked. 
There  was  Kat's  shoe  sailing  away  toward 
America  like  a  little  boat!  Kit's  were  still 
bobing  about  in  the  water  near  the  pier. 

"Oh!  Oh!  Oh!"  shrieked  Kat;  but  the  tide 
was  going  out  and  carrying  her  shoe  farther 
away  every  minute.  They  could  not  get  it; 
but  grandfather  reached  down  with  his  rod 
and  fished  out  both  of  Kit's  shoes.  Then  Kat 
took  off  her  other  one  and  her  stockings,  and 
they  all  three  went  back  to  the  beach. 

Grandfather  and  Kat  covered  Kit  up  with 
sand  to  keep  him  warm  while  his  clothes  were 
drying.  Then  grandfather  stuck  the  Twins' 
fish-poles  up  in  the  sand  and  tied  the  lines 
together  for  a  clothes-line,  and  hung  Kit's 
clothes  up  on  it,  and  Kat  put  their  three 
wooden  shoes  in  a  row  beside  Kit. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    91 

Then  they  ate  their  luncheon  of  bread  and 
butter,  cheese,  and  milk,  with  some  radishes 
from  father's  garden.  It  tasted  very  good, 
even  if  it  was  sandy.  After  lunch  grandfather 
said,  — 

"It  will  never  do  to  go  home  without  any 
fish  at  all." 

So  by  and  by  he  went  back  to  the  pier  and 
caught  one  while  the  Twins  played  in  the 
sand.  He  put  it  in  the  lunch-basket  to  carry 
home. 

Kat  brought  shells  and  pebbles  to  Kit,  be- 
cause he  had  to  stay  covered  up  in  the  sand, 
and  Kit  built  a  play  dyke  all  around  himself 
with  them,  and  Kat  dug  a  canal  outside  the 
dyke.  Then  she  made  sand-pies  in  clam-shells 
and  set  them  in  a  row  in  the  sun  to  bake. 

They  played  until  the  shadow  of  the  dyke 
grew  very  long  across  the  sandy  beach,  and 
then  grandfather  said  it  was  time  to  go  home. 

He  helped  Kit  dress,  but  Kit's  clothes  were 
still  a  little  wet  in  the  thick  parts.  And  Kat 
had  to  go  barefooted  and  carry  her  one 
wooden  shoe. 

They  climbed  the  dyke  and  crossed  the 
fields,  and  walked  along  the  road  by  the  canal. 
The  road  shone,  like  a  strip  of  yellow  ribbon 


92      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

across  the  green  field.  They  walked  quite 
slowly,  for  they  were  tired  and  sleepy. 

By  and  by  Kit  said,  "I  see  our  house"; 
and  Kat  said,  "I  see  mother  at  the  gate." 

Grandfather  gave  the  fish  he  caught  to  Kit 
and  Kat,  and  Vrouw  Vedder  cooked  it  for 
their  supper;  and  though  it  was  not  a  very 
big  fish,  they  all  had  some. 

Grandfather  must  have  told  Vrouw  Ved- 
der something  about  what  had  happened; 
for  that  night,  when  she  put  Kit  to  bed,  she 
felt  of  his  clothes  carefully  —  but  she  did  n't 
say  a  word  about  their  being  damp.  And 
she  said  to  Kat:  "To-morrow  we  will  see 
the  shoemaker  and  have  him  make  you  an- 
other shoe." 

Then  Kit  and  Kat  hugged  her  and  said 
good-night,  and  popped  off  to  sleep  before 
you  could  wink  your  eyes. 

I  want  you  to  notice  first  the  style  in 
which  this  chapter  is  written.  So  simple, 
so  clear,  so  direct,  so  flexible,  so  perfectly 
adapted  to  little  children  that  three-year- 
olds  adore  the  tale,  and  yet  —  are  you 
bored  by  it?    Is  there  any  of  the  first- 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    93 

reader  "This  is  a  cat.  The  cat  has  four 
legs"  English,  which  would  wear  you  out 
if  you  had  to  read  much  of  it?  How  true 
the  picture  painted  by  the  simple  words: 
"She  looked  across  the  road  which  ran  by 
the  house,  across  the  canal  on  the  other 
side,  across  the  level  green  fields  that  lay 
beyond,  clear  to  the  blue  rim  of  the  world, 
where  the  sky  touches  the  earth.  The  sky 
was  very  blue;  and  the  great,  round, 
shining  face  of  the  sun  was  just  peering 
over  the  tops  of  the  trees  as  she  looked 
out." 

Would  you  have  thought  of  attempting 
to  describe  the  dykes  of  Holland  and  its 
commerce  for  tiny  children?  And  yet  how 
perfectly  is  brought  to  their  understand- 
ing the  wall  that  has  to  be  there  to  shut 
out  the  sea  or  "there  wouldn't  be  any 
Holland  or  any  Holland  Twins  or  any 
story";  and  the  ships  that  "take  flax  and 
linen  from  the  mills  of  Holland  to  make 


94      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

dresses  for  little  girls  in  other  countries" 

—  big  things,  big  ideas  brought  to  little 
children  in  the  concrete  way  that  is  the 
way  of  giving  new  information  to  tiny 
folk.  The  author's  describing  the  wall 
first  —  making  it  interesting,  making  it 
important  to  our  little  listener  who  thinks 
himself  the  center  of  the  universe  —  and 
her  keeping  the  name  of  the  dyke  until 
the  last  —  there  again  is  understanding 
of  child  mind  as  well  as  skill  in  handling 
English. 

Next  note  the  story's  particularity  of 
detail  —  how  youngsters  delight  in  this! 
The  lunch  was  put  up  in  the  yellow  basket 

—  not  in  a  basket,  any  basket;  "the 
grandfather  carried  his  rod  and  the  lunch- 
basket,  the  Twins  the  basket  of  worms 
between  them  and  their  rods  over  their 
shoulders"  —  from  beginning  to  end  there 
is  a  most  satisfying  attention  to  such  im- 
portant items  as  these. 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    95 

It  is  a  happy  home  in  which  the  Twins 
live.  They  are  wakened  in  the  morning  by 
mother's  kiss.  Grandfather  thinks  it  fun 
to  give  his  holiday  for  the  small  people's 
pleasure.  Mother  does  n't  punish  children 
for  an  accident  that  means  a  lost  shoe  and 
a  soaking. 

The  incidents  of  the  story  are  abso- 
lutely natural  and  childlike;  and  what  a 
lot  of  fun  there  is!  The  hook's  catching 
and  pricking  Kit,  grandfather's  fishing 
the  youngster  out  of  the  water,  the  wet 
clothes  hung  out  on  the  improvised 
clothes-line  while  the  naked  little  twin 
plays  buried  up  to  his  arms  in  the  warm 
sand.  What  gay  laughs  our  small  listener 
will  have  over  these  catastrophes ! 

And  then,  this  is  one  of  the  stories  that 
"  open  doors."  Most  of  its  incidents  and 
allusions  sound  familiar  to  our  little  lis- 
tener. This  is  important.  We  proceed 
"from  the  known  to  the  unknown"  in 


96      READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

educating  not  only  children  but  grown 
people.  By  familiar  child  life  set  in  novel 
surroundings,  with  the  strange  scenes  not 
too  swiftly  introduced  and  described,  we 
have  opened  a  door  to  a  new  interest.  To 
the  end  of  his  days  quaint  little  Holland, 
the  land  of  dykes  and  canals  and  wooden 
shoes  and  Dutch  twins,  will  be  no  dull 
geography  lesson,  no  mere  spot  on  the 
map,  but  a  country  of  vivid  personal  in- 
terest to  the  big  boy  and  the  man  who 
listened  to  mother's  reading  of  this  story 
in  childhood. 

I  have  not  spoken  of  the  delightful  il- 
lustrations of  "The  Dutch  Twins"  be- 
cause it  would  be  piling  on  impossible 
demands  to  say  that  every  author  should 
illustrate  her  own  books  as  profusely  and 
effectively  as  has  Mrs.  Perkins.  Would  n't 
it  be  ideal  if  such  a  demand  could  be  met? 

You  will  notice,  if  you  make  the  test, 
that  this  story  has  a  positive,  a  good 


STORIES  THAT  MIGHT  BE  TRUE    97 

quality  for  every  "Don't"  of  the  preced- 
ing chapter.  Try  by  this  test  every  book 
you  read  to  your  children.  You  will  not 
long  need  the  simple  language  of  the 
"Twins,"  because  children  who  listen 
daily  to  good  reading  grow  with  astonish- 
ing rapidity  in  vocabulary  and  mental 
grasp. 

The  thought  of  choosing  books  which 
will  open  doors  to  new  interest  leads  us 
directly  into  the  subject  of  the  next 
chapter,  travel  and  history  stories  for  lit- 
tle people. 


CHAPTER  IX 

TRAVEL   AND   HISTORY   STORIES 

One  day  when  I  was  eleven  or  twelve 
years  of  age,  strolling  into  my  best  friend's 
house  I  caught  sight  of  a  green-and-gold 
covered  book  bearing  the  fascinating  title 
"The  Prince  and  the  Pauper."  Opening 
to  the  frontispiece  I  beheld  a  silk-and- 
jewel  clad  prince  approaching  a  tattered 
lad  of  his  own  age,  while  a  big  man-at- 
arms  at  rigid  attention  stood  near. 

A  second  later  and  I  was  three  thousand 
miles  and  more  than  three  hundred  years 
away  from  my  apparent  surroundings, 
following  with  breathless  absorption  the 
fortunes  of  the  boy  King  Edward  VI  of 
England,  fortunes  so  strangely  inter- 
woven by  the  wonderful  story-teller  with 
those  of  his  ragged  subject  Tom  Canty. 


TRAVEL  AND  HISTORY  STORIES    99 

I  have  no  idea  how  many  times  I  have 
read  that  entrancing  story,  but  I  know 
I  shall  never  outgrow  its  effect.  I  smile 
at  the  memory  of  my  girlish  indignation 
when  I  opened  my  first  English  history 
textbook  and  found  the  reign  of  my  boy 
king  disposed  of  in  three  brief  pages !  All 
other  history  might  be  dull,  but  anything, 
anywhere,  about  Edward  and  his  father 
Henry  VIII,  and  his  sisters  Elizabeth  and 
Mary,  about  Lady  Jane  Grey  his  cousin 
and  Hertford  Lord  Protector,  about  Lon- 
don of  the  sixteenth  century  and  the  cus- 
toms and  institutions  of  the  times,  —  con- 
nect a  character  or  an  occurrence  with  this 
story  and  immediately  it  took  on  vivid 
interest.  When  I  began  to  study  general 
history,  I  mentally  dated  important  Eu- 
ropean events  as  so  many  years  before  or 
after  the  reign  of  Edward.  This  early 
awakened  interest  in  the  Tudor  period 
follows  me  even  now.  Only  lately,  for  ex- 


100    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

ample,  I  discovered  Harrison  Ainsworth's 
nice,  old-fashioned  novels,  because,  hap- 
pening to  glance  into  "The  Tower  of  Lon- 
don," I  noticed  "Lady  Jane  Grey"  on  the 
first  page.  That  settled  my  carrying  the 
book  to  the  charging  desk,  and  going  back 
shortly  for  "Windsor  Castle,"  a  story  of 
Henry  VIII. 

When  I  took  my  first  wonderful  trip 
abroad  a  few  years  since,  it  was  natural 
enough  —  though  unpremeditated  —  that 
the  English  part  of  the  trip  should  become 
a  sort  of  "Prince  and  the  Pauper"  pil- 
grimage; but  I  also  learned  some  new 
things  about  the  influence  of  a  child's 
story  books  on  an  adult's  likings. 

From  the  minute  I  took  my  first  walk 
upon  the  walls  of  an  ancient  city,  and 
when  I  crossed  a  grassy  moat  to  step  under 
the  portcullis  of  a  grim  feudal  castle,  from 
those  first  hours  in  old  England  to  the  day 
before  my  return  sailing,  when,  in  Paris, 


TRAVEL  AND  HISTORY  STORIES    101 

the  name  Rue  Roget  de  Lisle  on  a  street 
corner  sent  the  shivers  along  my  spi- 
nal column  as  I  thought  of  the  stirring 
happenings  which  the  singing  of  the 
"Marseillaise"  has  always  occasioned  in 
France,  —  all  through  my  happy  travels 
I  kept  finding  that  the  things  I  enjoyed 
most  were  those  I  had  known  about  and 
loved  when  I  was  a  child.  In  the  tired  dog 
dragging  a  milk-cart  through  the  streets 
of  Brussels,  I  beheld  the  original  of  "The 
Dog  of  Flanders."  Each  German  castle 
crowning  a  rocky  height  made  me  picture 
within  its  walls  the  gentle  "Dove"  who 
came  to  live  in  just  such  an  "Eagle's 
Nest"  of  robber  barons  hundreds  of  years 
ago.  After  a  long  day's  ride  across  Ger- 
many I  chuckled  with  glee  when  sweet- 
faced  Schwester  Augusta  left  me  in  a 
room  having  a  tall  white  porcelain  stove 
in  one  corner.  It  was  a  warm  July  day  and 
I  had  no  occasion  whatever  for  needing  a 


102    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

fire,  but  was  not  a  porcelain  stove,  even 
one  of  plain  white  tiles,  at  least  a  distant 
cousin  to  the  wonderful  Hirschvogel  in 
the  story  of  "The  Niirnberg  Stove"? 

Comparing  notes  with  many  others  I 
find  that  my  experience  is  typical  of  that 
of  most  adults  who  spent  many  childish 
hours  in  story  books.  You  will  not  won- 
der, therefore,  that  I  believe  firmly  in  the 
romantic  story  as  a  starting-point  for  a 
child's  interest  in  history  and  travel.,  Ad- 
mirable accounts  of  historical  events, 
descriptions  of  the  customs  or  scenery  of 
a  country  pale  before  the  story  of  a  hero 
or  heroine  who  lives  in  the  midst  of  those 
events  or  scenes. 

Little  "Heidi"  of  the  Swiss  Alps, 
"  Peep-in-the- World "  who  spent  such  a 
delightful  holiday  in  Germany,  funny 
"Donkey  John"  the  little  wood  carver 
of  the  "Toy  Valley"  in  the  Tyrol,  —  if 
all  children  grew  up  with  such  stories  as 


TRAVEL  AND  HISTORY  STORIES    103 

these,  we  librarians  should  not  encounter 
the  narrow  reading  interests  common  to 
many  of  our  boys  and  girls  to-day.  A  lit- 
tle girl,  glancing  into  a  book  called  "Two 
Royal  Foes,"  remarked  to  the  children's 
librarian,  "You'd  know  that  book  was  no 
good  because  the  minute  you  look  into  it 
you  see  the  word  'Prussia'!"  (This  inci- 
dent took  place  years  before  the  great 
war.  The  child  was  merely  voicing  her 
colossal  indifference  to  anything  that  bore 
a  foreign  name.)  Two  big  boys  return- 
ing from  a  trip  around  the  world  were 
asked  by  a  Scotch  friend  of  mine,  "Well, 
boys,  how  did  you  like  my  Edinburgh?" 
"Edinburgh?  Edinburgh?"  said  one  of 
the  boys,  wrinkling  his  forehead:  then 
turning  to  his  brother,  he  asked,  "Say, 
Jack,  that's  the  place  we  bought  those 
golf  stockings,  is  n't  it?" 

The  trouble  with  those  children  was 
that  their  fathers  and  mothers  did  not 


104    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

early  (choose  songs  and  pictures  and  stories 
that  would  have  made  foreign  names  rich 
with  possibilities  of  interest.  A  young 
child  who  hears  his  mother  sing  the  ten- 
der and  stirring  Scotch  ballads,  who  lives 
in  the  pictures  of  Caldecott  and  Green- 
away,  Oscar  Pletsch  and  Boutet  de  Mon- 
vel,  who  listens  to  tales  of  Curtius  and 
Joan  of  Arc,  Tell  and  Bruce  and  Hia- 
watha, becomes  a  heart-dweller  in  these 
lands  of  song  and  picture  and  story;  and 
this  love  for  the  picturesque  in  history 
and  travel  is  the  first  step  on  the  road  to 
an  interest  in  facts  and  dates  and  philo- 
sophical history  and  in  descriptions  of 
others  lands  and  peoples. 

After  you  have  kindled  their  interest, 
the  children  will  show  what  next  to  do, 
because  they  will  be  so  full  of  questions 
that  you  will  have  but  to  follow  their 
lead.  If  there  is  a  good  public  library  in 
your  town,  the  reference  librarian  will  be 


TRAVEL  AND  HISTORY  STORIES    105 

your  best  friend.  Are  the  children  living 
in  the  Rome  of  faithless  Tarpeia  and  faith- 
ful Damon  and  Pythias,  of  Romulus  and 
Remus  and  Androcles  the  lion's  friend? 
Bring  home  volumes  from  the  shelves  of 
Roman  history  and  antiquities,  books 
whose  illustrations  will  give  the  houses 
and  the  amphitheaters  and  the  temples, 
warriors  in  full  armor,  triumphal  prog- 
resses, vestal  virgins  and  galley  slaves, 
ships  and  market-places  and  sumptuous 
Roman  feasts.  You  have  only  to  remark 
that  these  books  contain  pictures  of  an- 
cient Rome  which  may  be  seen  by  any 
child  who  has  clean  hands  and  who  will 
turn  the  leaves  carefully,  and  you  will  be 
kept  busy  for  days  answering  questions; 
and  some  years  hence  the  Roman  history 
lessons  of  your  high-school  son  and  daugh- 
ter will  be  a  happy  renewal  of  acquaint- 
ance with  old  friends,  instead  of  a  text- 
book grind. 


106    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Perhaps  at  this  point  I  ought  to  say 
that  I  do  not  advise  reading  "The  Prince 
and  the  Pauper"  to  little  children,  for 
fear  that  its  richness  of  allusion  might  be 
confusing  even  to  those  used  to  the  best 
reading.  Firmly  as  I  believe  that  we  more 
often  err  in  holding  back  than  by  pushing 
ahead  bright-minded  children,  it  is  pos- 
sible to  go  too  fast;  and  it  would  be  al- 
most a  tragedy  to  give  a  child  a  lasting 
dislike  for  a  thing  so  beautiful  as  the 
above,  by  choosing  the  wrong  time  for  the 
first  reading.  The  mother  herself,  from 
her  familiarity  with  her  child  and  the 
book  under  consideration,  must  decide 
when  the  right  time  has  come  to  introduce 
the  new  story. 


CHAPTER  X 

NATURE   BOOKS 

A  comfortable  old  horse  was  jogging 
along  a  country  road  bearing  villageward 
a  lad  of  nine,  his  mother  and  aunt,  who 
had  been  spending  a  day  at  a  friend's 
lakeside  bungalow.  It  was  the  twilight 
hour  and  over  the  lonely  stretch  of  woods 
through  which  they  were  passing  the  very 
spirit  of  peace  seemed  to  brood. 

Suddenly  the  boy's  mother  drew  rein 
exclaiming,  "  Hark !  There 's  a  wood  thrush 
singing  his  evening  song." 

From  the  depths  of  the  woods  came 
the  notes,  so  thrillingly  sweet,  so  poign- 
antly sad,  that  one  can  scarcely  hear 
them  without  a  lump  in  the  throat.  We 
listened,  almost  breathless,  till  the  lovely 
song  ended,  and  then  drove  on,  our  boy 


108    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

—  a  youngster  still  in  the  primitive  sav- 
age stage  of  development  —  as  silent  as 
we  grown-ups  in  the  sweet  hush  of  the 
hour. 

Months  later,  in  their  city  home,  I 
was  reading  to  the  children  our  favor- 
ite country  story,  "Jolly  Good  Times,"  a 
wonderfully  perfect  picture  of  child  life 
on  a  New  England  farm.  We  came  to 
this  description  of  the  close  of  one  of 
Millie's  and  Teddy's  summer  days:  — 

Later,  when  Lois  and  Chettie  had  gone 
home,  Millie  went  with  Teddy  to  drive  the 
cows  to  pasture.  The  sun  had  set,  but  all  the 
low-lying  clouds  along  the  western  mountains 
were  still  bright  with  rosy  light.  Belated 
birds  were  flying  in  all  directions,  seeking 
their  homes  for  the  night.  Their  songs  had 
ceased.  There  was  only  a  faint,  chippering, 
twittering  sound,  as  they  subsided  into  their 
nests. 

Suddenly  Teddy  caught  Millie's  arm. 

"Stop!"  he  said, "Hark,  a  minute!  There's 
my  bird." 


NATURE  BOOKS  109 

Way  off,  from  the  woods  across  the  river 
came  the  sweet,  melancholy  notes  of  a  wood 
thrush.  They  listened  as  the  twilight  seemed 
to  throb  and  quiver  with  the  melody.  .  .  . 

I  looked  up,  smiling,  into  the  eyes  of 
our  nine-year-old.  How  those  eyes  glowed 
back  into  mine  as  our  young  savage 
breathed  a  long  "Ah-h-h!  That's  slick"! 
"  Slick"  I  perfectly  understood  to  be 
"  boy  "  for  the  beauty  and  the  feeling  and 
the  poetry  which  I  knew  to  be  buried 
deep  in  the  heart  of  this  most  unroman- 
tic  appearing  youngster. 

If  I  were  able  to  dictate  the  "bringing- 
up"  of  a  child  which  would  insure  his 
becoming  deeply  interested  in  the  won- 
derland of  nature,  I  should  arrange  for 
his  having  a  mother  like  the  one  possessed 
by  the  above  fortunate  children,  a  woman 
having  the  scientist's  enthusiasm  and  ex- 
act habits  of  observation,  a  deep  reverence 
for  God's  wonderful  works,  and  the  under- 


110    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

standing  tact  of  a  loving  student  of  child 
nature. 

The  family  may  be  seated  at  the  din- 
ner table  when  this  mother  exclaims, 
"  Children,  I  verily  believe  I  see  a  parula 
warbler!"  The  "parula  warbler,"  it  ap- 
pears, is  a  very  rare  visitor  in  these  parts, 
so  unusual,  indeed,  as  to  justify  the  fam- 
ily's  leaving  the  table,  getting  out  the 
bird  glasses,  and  taking  a  good  look  at  the 
stranger.  After  the  children  resume  their 
seats  the  mother  reads  from  her  Blanchan 
and  Chapman  descriptions  of  the  new 
bird  ;  and  when  dessert  is  finally  over  the 
little  daughter,  who  "takes  music  les- 
sons," gets  the  book  on  "Wild  Birds  and 
their  Music"  to  see  if  Mr.  Matthews  tells 
her  how  to  reproduce  parula  warbler's 
notes  on  the  piano.  This  time  the  book 
disappoints  her,  for  the  new  acquaint- 
ance is  so  insignificant  a  songster  that 
his  notes  are  not  given. 


NATURE  BOOKS  111 

Out  in  the  garden,  poking  about  among 
her  beloved  growing  things,  the  mother 
calls,  "  Children,  come  here  and  see  this 
little  creature."  The  children  leave  the 
swing,  or  the  tea  party  on  the  back  porch, 
or  the  "shoot  the  shute"  in  the  maple 
tree,  and  eagerly  stoop  close  to  notice  a 
caterpillar  that  lives  on  the  parsley  and 
carrot  leaves.  The  little  creature  is  so 
marked  with  green,  white,  and  yellow, 
resembling  the  green,  lacy  foliage  with 
the  sunshine  and  shadows  falling  be- 
tween the  narrow  fringes  of  the  leaves, 
that  he  is  almost  indistinguishable.  This, 
mother  tells,  is  an  example  of  nature's 
protective  coloring,  and  the  fascinating 
subject  is  pursued  in  books  that  tell  about 
animals  who  wear  coats  of  snow  color  in 
winter  and  woods  colors  in  summer  and 
about  many  other  wonderful  provisions 
of  Mother  Nature. 

Strolling  along  a  country  road  bordered 


112    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

by  delightful  wild  growth  the  mother 
points  out  a  "jewel  casket  that  has  no 
lock  and  key,  but  if  you  touch  its  secret 
spring  the  jewels  will  fly  out  for  you." 
This  starts  the  children  on  the  search  for 
all  sorts  of  curious  seed  travelers,  seeds 
with  wings  and  seeds  with  sails,  prickly 
seeds  that  cling  to  animals  who  thus 
carry  them  to  new  planting  ground,  and 
so  on. 

After  a  rain  the  children  have  a  clear 
little  illustration  of  the  action  of  water  in 
carving  the  earth's  surface.  Deep  val- 
leys and  canyons  are  shown  to  have  been 
formed  in  the  same  way,  on  a  large  scale, 
as  the  little  valleys  and  canyons  in  the 
children's  own  yard. 

And,  perhaps,  of  all  the  natural  sci- 
ences this  mother  thinks  most  of  the 
study  of  astronomy,  for,  believing  that 
facts  stored  in  the  mind  are  of  little  im- 
portance as  compared  with  the  effect  of 


NATURE  BOOKS  113 

knowledge  upon  the  heart  and  soul,  she 
thinks  the  study  of  the  heavens  pecul- 
iarly fitted  to  give  the  child  thoughts 
that  reach  up  to  God. 

If  you  ask  me  to  suggest  a  book  that 
will  be  certain  to  kindle  a  child's  interest 
in  the  people  of  Switzerland,  I  can  safely 
answer,  " Read  Johanna  Spyri's  'Heidi.'  " 
If  you  ask  how  to  make  nature  lovers  and 
observers  of  children,  I  must  answer  that 
no  book  or  books  can  be  depended  upon 
to  accomplish  this.  A  mother  or  other 
sympathetic  adult  who  has  at  least  an 
elementary  acquaintance  with  the  nat- 
ural sciences,  and  who  is  willing  to  study 
enough  to  keep  ahead  of  her  children, 
must,  in  ways  like  the  above,  rouse  the 
children's  interest  in  the  animals,  the 
plants,  the  stars  themselves.  After  this, 
and  always  along  with  this  personal  in- 
troduction, books  will  be  perfect  mines 
of    delight.     Not    "juvenile"    books    so 


114    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

much  as  the  mother's  own  reference  li- 
brary, however. 

A  list  called  "Some  Nature  Books  for 
Mothers  and  Children"  is  published  by 
the  Children's  Museum  of  the  Brooklyn 
Institute  of  Arts  and  Sciences.  About 
ninety  titles  are  given,  and  one  may  find 
not  one  but  a  number  of  books  on  rep- 
tiles, on  shells,  on  fishes,  pond  life,  moths, 
wasps,  spiders,  ferns,  mushrooms,  garden 
vegetables,  trees  in  winter  as  well  as  in 
summer,  and  so  on.  Mothers  and  fathers 
outside  of  Brooklyn  will  at  any  time  be 
helped  with  advice  if  they  apply  to  the 
above  unique  and  interesting  museum. 

An  adult  beginner  who  wishes  a  com- 
pact, authoritative,  fairly  popular  and 
not  very  expensive  book  on  each  of  a 
half-dozen  subjects  most  likely  to  appeal 
to  children  will  make  no  mistake  in  add- 
ing to  her  library  the  following :  — 


NATURE  BOOKS  115 

On  Birds 

Chapman,  F.  M.  Handbook  of  Birds  of  Eastern 
North  America.  Appleton.   $3.50. 

Bailey,  Mrs.  F.  M.  Handbook  of  Birds  of  the  West- 
ern United  States.  Houghton.  $3.50. 

On  Insects 
Comstock,  J.  H.  Insect  Life.  Appleton.  $1.75. 

On  Wild  Flowers 
Dana,  Mrs.  F.  T.  How  to  Know  the  Wild  Flowers. 
Scribner.  $2. 

On  Trees 
Keeler,  H.  L.   Our  Native  Trees  and  How  to  Iden- 
tify Them.  Scribner.  $2. 

On  Geology 
Brigham,  A.  P.    Textbook  of  Geology.   Appleton. 
$1.40  net. 

On  Astronomy 
Clarke,  E.  C.  Astronomy  from  a  Dipper.  Hough- 
ton. $.60. 

In  a  later  chapter,  among  books  rec- 
ommended for  the  children's  own  library, 
I  will  give  a  few  titles  of  "juvenile"  na- 
ture books   interesting  enough  for  gen- 


116     READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

eral  reading  even  if  one  has  no  leaning 
to  the  subject.  Judging  by  what  we  have 
to  choose  from,  it  is  uncommon  for  the 
person  who  is  an  authority  on  a  branch 
of  science  to  possess  also  an  understand- 
ing of  children  and  a  gift  of  style.  Unless 
it  is  as  well  done  as  in  the  case  of  "The 
Prince  and  His  Ants,"  a  writer  only  con- 
fuses children  and  makes  his  information 
useless  by  attempting  to  give  his  facts 
in  the  guise  of  a  fairy  tale.  Look  for 
books  that  give  information  in  clear, 
straightforward  language,  with  such  oc- 
casional bits  of  imagination  and  compari- 
son with  familiar  human  life  as  will  help 
to  capture  and  hold  the  interest  of  little 
children. 

Seek  books  whose  science  is  accurate, 
yet  remember  always  that  to  kindle  a 
child's  love  for  the  Heavenly  Father's 
creatures  is  far  more  important  than  to 
teach  him  to  dissect  and  name  their  parts. 


CHAPTER  XI 

BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS  AND  GAMES 

On  one  of  the  lovely  bays  that  indent  the 
coast  of  the  "Country  of  the  Pointed 
Firs"  there  is  a  sheltered  nook  so  beau- 
tiful that  I  withhold  its  name  lest  fashion 
come  to  appropriate  and  spoil  the  place 
for  a  little  group  who  annually  fly  from 
the  city's  work  to  recuperate  spirit  and 
body  in  the  heavenly  loveliness  of  earth 
and  sea  and  sky. 

Among  the  attractions  of  the  spot  to 
those  fortunate  enough  to  be  invited 
within  the  circle  are  the  charming  girls 
and  boys  whose  fathers  and  mothers 
have  found  this  summer  home. 

Dearly  as  we  Americans  love  our  chil- 
dren, there  is  no  denying  the  fact  that 
most  of  us  have  not  yet  learned  how  not 


118    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

to  spoil  them.  If  the  agent  of  a  summer 
resort  were  to  advertise  as  a  chief  attrac- 
tion the  presence  of  numbers  of  children 
between  the  ages  of  six  and  twelve,  who 
might  be  counted  upon  to  accompany 
adult  visitors  on  all  sailing  trips  and  pic- 
nics and  country  tramps;  who  would  join 
in  conversations  and  games  and  fireside 
concerts ;  —  one  can  imagine  that  that 
vacation  place  would  be  given  a  wide 
berth,  not  merely  by  those  who  frankly 
dislike  children,  but  by  the  very  people 
who  are  devoting  their  lives  to  making 
conditions  happier  and  better  for  the 
little  ones  they  love. 

Unhappily  familiar  as  we  all  are  with 
the  enfant  terrible  whose  sacred  right  to 
develop  freely  is  interpreted  by  most 
parents  as  an  inalienable  right  to  trample 
upon  the  liberties  of  adults,  it  is  most  re- 
freshing to  find  one  spot  where  boys  and 
girls,  trained  by  fathers  and  mothers  pos- 


BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS         119 

sessing  a  genius  for  parenthood,  enter  so 
happily  into  the  life  of  the  community 
that  departing  visitors,  without  stretch- 
ing the  truth,  assure  the  parents  that  their 
vacation  pleasures  have  been  enhanced 
many  fold  by  the  presence  of  the  charm- 
ing children. 

One  of  the  causes  contributing  to  the 
above  delightful  result  is  that  these  chil- 
dren have  been  trained  to  a  resourceful- 
ness truly  remarkable.  The  youngsters 
can  "do"  more  things  with  their  bodies 
and  brains  than  most  people  would  be- 
lieve possible  to  be  done  by  children  of 
their  ages.  They  were  all  born,  too,  be- 
fore America  went  into  hysterics  over  the 
teachings  of  a  certain  foreign  lady,  hailed 
as  a  prophet  by  women  who  seem  to  have 
lost  the  art  of  their  grandmothers  in 
bringing  up  children. 

A  year  or  two  ago  one  of  the  boys  of 
Cove  stood  watching  his  mother 


120    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

as  she  deftly  concocted  one  of  his  favorite 
dishes.  Presently  he  exclaimed,  "Mother, 
I'd  like  to  learn  to  make  muffins!" 

There  is  one  kind  of  mother  who  would 
have  answered  the  lad,  "Oh,  you'd  get 
flour  and  grease  all  over  the  kitchen.  I 
can't  have  you  messing  round  my  stove. 
It's  too  much  trouble  to  teach  you.  I'd 
rather  do  the  work  myself." 

A  mother  of  a  more  indulgent  sort 
would  have  submitted  to  the  "messing," 
complying  part  way  with  the  boy's  desire 
by  allowing  him  to  help,  but  by  no  means 
to  learn  the  whole  interesting  process. 

Still  another  mother  would  have  ex- 
claimed, "What,  a  boy  in  the  kitchen 
baking!  This  is  women's  and  girls'  work, 
not  boys',  and  men's.  You  don't  want 
to  be  a  girly  boy!" 

Arthur's  mother  was  different.  She 
knew  that  it  was  a  trouble  to  teach  a  be- 
ginner, and  that  messing  the  kitchen  was 


BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS         121 

an  inevitable  stage  in  a  young  cook's 
progress.  She,  however,  believed  in  the 
all-round  training  of  every  human;  she 
knew  that  the  very  best  time  for  teaching 
any  new  thing  is  the  time  when  the  child 
himself  wants  to  learn  it;  and  she  looked 
into  the  future,  to  emergencies  when  the 
boy's  and  man's  ability  to  cook  might 
be  vitally  useful  to  himself  and  to  others 
dependent  upon  him. 

So  Arthur  learned  to  make  first-rate 
muffins.  And  now,  on  many  a  summer 
morning,  the  children  steal  softly  and 
gleefully  down  the  bare,  sweet-smelling 
stairs,  and  while  Arthur  acts  as  chef,  lit- 
tlest sister  sets  the  table,  nine-year-old 
brings  on  the  luscious  blueberries,  the 
country  cream  and  the  shredded  wheat. 
By  the  time  father  comes  to  make  the 
coffee,  breakfast  is  ready  in  the  beauti- 
ful bungalow  living-room,  flooded  with 
morning  sunshine  and  sweet  with  odors 


YB,    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

of  pine  and  sea;  and  mother  is  proudly 
escorted  to  her  place  by  the  family  who 
delight  to  hear  her  exclaim  at  their  allow- 
ing her  to  be  so  lazy  as  to  sleep  until  this 
late  hour. 

Of  course  it  is  good  for  children,  —  the 
untrammeled  life  in  a  summer  home, 
where  sailing,  rowing,  motor-boating,  ca- 
noeing, and  swimming  may  be  daily  en- 
joyed; where  one  may  collect  specimens 
from  the  beach  at  low  tide,  or  from  woods 
and  fields  skirting  the  rocky  shore;  where 
to  familiarity  with  sea  life  is  added  the 
charm  of  being  at  home  in  farm  and  gar- 
den; where  one  assists  at  clam-bakes  and 
making  hot  bacon  sandwiches,  at  con- 
structing a  dressing-table  and  building  an 
ice-house;  where  one  moulds  dishes  from 
one's  own  claybank  and  bakes  the  same 
in  a  miniature  oven  built  just  above  high- 
water  mark ;  where  the  sea  provides  neck- 
laces for  doll  children  and  the  roadside 


BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS         123 

burrs  to  make  doll  furniture;  where  —  but 
there  is  positively  no  limit  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  educating  those  children  to  use 
every  faculty  God  has  given  them. 

The  girls  swim  as  well  as  the  boys,  and 
handle  the  boats  as  skillfully.  The  boys 
have  never  heard  that  for  a  male  creature 
to  touch  a  needle  is  evidence  of  weakness. 
The  same  manly  boy  of  eleven  whose  cool- 
ness and  courage  saved  a  boatful  of  peo- 
ple from  disaster,  with  a  twinkle  of  fun 
contributed  an  excellent  piece  of  embroid- 
ery to  the  "fair"  annually  held  in  the 
tiny  church  on  the  hill.  Simple  "first  aid " 
lessons  have  been  absorbed  to  such  pur- 
pose that  when  one  of  the  little  girls  cut 
her  finger  rather  badly,  none  of  the  grown- 
ups being  near,  a  twelve-year-old  used  the 
peroxide,  the  absorbent  cotton  and  the 
surgical  tape  as  cleverly  as  his  mother 
would  have  done. 

In  parlor  games  as  well  as  out  of  doors, 


124    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

these  children,  by  intimate  association 
with  adults,  learn  initiative,  resourceful- 
ness, and  mental  quickness,  to  be  equally 
free  from  self-consciousness  and  from  for- 
wardness, to  take  defeat  like  good  sports- 
men. They  are  learning,  in  short,  how 
to  become  delightful  contributing  mem- 
bers of  social  gatherings. 

Now  the  time  to  begin  training  a  child 
to  enjoy  himself  without  constant  tend- 
ing is  in  his  earliest  years.  Too  many 
American  mothers  needed  Montessori  to 
tell  them  that  a  child  wants  to  do  things 
for  himself,  that  he  feels  baffled,  defraud- 
ed, when  impatient  or  misunderstanding 
adults  take  the  shoe-tying  out  of  his 
bungling  fingers,  and  at  the  same  time  take 
away  opportunities  for  the  child  to  learn 
control  of  his  muscles  and  control  of  his 
will. 

Any  mother  with  the  best  will  in  the 
world  to  employ  the  busy  little  minds  and 


BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS  125 

fingers  would  run  out  of  ideas  if  she  could 
not  draw  upon  others'  experiences  for  help. 
We  were  never  so  fortunate  as  to-day  in 
the  number  of  excellent  books  of  occupa- 
tions and  games  available.  While  most  of 
these  are  written  for  children  above  eight 
or  nine  years  of  age,  there  are  a  few  well 
adapted  for  the  use  of  mothers  of  the 
younger  children. 

A  book  which  tells  one  how  to  get 
hours  and  hours  of  fun  out  of  material 
usually  treated  as  waste  is  twice  valuable 
—  it  saves  the  dollars  for  parents  who 
have  not  many  to  spend,  and  it  shows  the 
children  that  a  department  store  and  a 
full  purse  are  not  necessary  for  amusement 
if  one  is  a  person  of  ideas.  Such  a  book  is 
one  by  Bertha  Johnston,  called  "Home 
Occupations  for  Little  Children."  How 
to  make  a  toy  fence  out  of  a  strawberry- 
box,  how  to  make  a  potato  horse,  a  corn- 
cob house,  a  seed  necklace,  a  clothes-pin 


126    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

doll,  a  cork  table;  about  collecting  and 
classifying  pebbles,  leaves,  etc.,  about 
games  and  celebrations  of  festival  days  — 
these  are  hints  of  the  suggestions  for 
mothers  which  this  little  book  gives ;  in  a 
way,  too,  to  make  one  think  of  the  prin- 
ciples underlying  the  choice  of  occupa- 
tions and  materials.  This  book  should  be 
on  the  mother's  shelf  when  the  little  one 
is  hardly  out  of  babyhood. 

To  supplement  the  above,  as  the  baby 
grows  to  be  five  or  six  years  old,  choose 
Beard's  "Little  Folks'  Handy  Book." 
The  profuse  illustrations  and  clear  dia- 
grams help  to  explain  how  to  make  paper 
jewelry,  old  envelope  toys,  visiting  card 
houses,  Christmas  tree  decorations,  In- 
dian costumes  of  newspapers,  and  many 
other  things. 

One  of  the  best  on  its  subject  for  the 
younger  children  is  Lucas's  "  Three  Hun- 
dred   Games    and    Pastimes,    or,    What 


BOOKS  OF  OCCUPATIONS  127 

shall  we  do  now."  Here  are  games  old 
and  new,  games  for  the  fireside  and  for  the 
garden,  games  to  play  in  the  train,  on  a 
picnic,  at  the  seaside,  even  games  to  play 
alone  and  in  bed.  There  are  suggestions, 
too,  about  things  to  make  and  do,  and 
this  book  will  entertain  the  children  for 
their  evenings  and  rainy  days  until  they 
grow  old  enough  to  borrow  "harder" 
books  from  the  public  library. 

Rich's  "When  Mother  Lets  Us  Make 
Paper-Box  Furniture"  is  particularly  sat- 
isfactory. The  pictures  show  exactly  the 
necessary  stages  in  the  transformation  of 
a  box  into  a  doll's  piano,  a  bookcase,  a 
chiffonier,  a  stove,  as  the  case  may  be. 
The  directions  tell  just  what  kind  of  boxes 
to  use  and  what  outfit  of  tools  is  neces- 
sary. Materials  are  so  inexpensive  and 
results  so  satisfactory  that  this  little  vol- 
ume pays  its  way  many  times  over. 

There    are  two    housekeeping    books, 


128    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

clear,  simple,  and  attractive  enough  to  be 
used  even  with  seven-year-olds.  These  are 
Johnson's  "When  Mother  Lets  Us  Help," 
and  Ralston's  "When  Mother  Lets  Us 
Sew."  These  will  make  housework  look 
interesting  to  any  child.  No  wonder  it 
becomes  monotonous  to  "help"  always 
and  only  by  wiping  the  spoons,  dusting 
the  chair-legs,  and  similar  over-and-over 
practices.  Such  employment  is  about  as 
educative  as  piece-work  in  a  factory.  Let 
the  children  learn  whole  processes,  and 
once  more,  do  not  be  afraid  of  their  be- 
ginning early. 

If  one  is  lucky  enough  to  have  an  "out- 
doors," Mary  Duncan's  "When  Mother 
Lets  Us  Garden"  is  as  inviting  as  it  is 
practical  and  helpful.  From  the  happy 
occupation  of  coaxing  things  to  grow  in 
one's  own  little  patch  of  ground  it  is  an 
easy  step  to  making  friends  with  all  of 
Mother  Nature's  children. 


CHAPTER  XII 

BUYING   THE   LIBRARY 

It  is  now  time  for  the  list  of  books  which 
are  to  be  bought  for  the  nursery  bookshelf. 
Used  as  I  am  to  the  task,  it  is  always  diffi- 
cult to  come  down  to  the  positiveness  of 
a  short  list,  because  of  the  necessary  ex- 
clusion of  fine  books  which  it  hurts  one  to 
leave  out.  The  list  must  be  short  to  be 
practical,  since  the  average  father  of  these 
expensive  children  will  be  unable  to  spend 
many  dollars  a  year  on  their  library,  and 
of  course  those  dollars  must  be  made  to 
buy  the  richest  library  possible.  I  shall 
name  more  titles  than  this  "average" 
family  could  afford,  but  few  people  are 
entirely  out  of  reach  of  public  libraries, 
which  will  lend  what  one  cannot  own. 
Suppose  one  has  a  number  of  poetry 


130    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

collections  from  which  to  choose.  All  are 
so  well  selected  that  it  is  hard  to  say  that 
one  is  better  than  another  in  quality. 

We  must  first  see  whether  these  collec- 
tions practically  duplicate  one  another, 
or  whether  it  is  necessary  to  buy  two  or 
more  in  order  to  cover  all  the  varieties  of 
poetry  we  wish  to  give  the  children. 

We  will  next  let  the  price  question  help 
us  decide.  Here  is  Number  One  costing 
$2  and  very  similar,  except  for  unneces- 
sarily costly  make-up,  to  Number  Two 
at  $1.25.  Number  Three  is  as  well  se- 
lected as  Number  Two  and  is,  moreover, 
a  larger  collection.  But  Number  Three 
is  printed  on  poorer  paper  than  Number 
Two  (and  will  therefore  wear  out  faster), 
its  type  is  rather  forbiddingly  fine,  and 
there  are  no  illustrations.  A  poetry  col- 
lection does  not  need  illustrations,  but 
those  in  Number  Two  are  quaint  and 
interesting  so  that  they  really  add  to  the 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  131 

value  of  the  book.  Collection  Number 
Four  costs  only  75  cents,  but  it  has  less 
than  half  as  many  poems  as  Number 
Two,  at  $1.25;  Number  Five  is  too 
bulky;  Number  Six  is  very  poorly  illus- 
trated. Finally  we  decide  to  buy  Num- 
ber Two. 

This  may  illustrate  slightly  the  method 
by  which  we  arrive  at  a  decision  to  in- 
clude one  title  and  reject  another.  The 
result  does  not  mean  necessarily  that  the 
title  included  is  the  one  good  book  of  its 
kind,  but  rather  that,  all  things  consid- 
ered, it  is  best  for  our  purpose. 

Where  there  are  several  good  editions 
of  a  book  obtainable  I  have  named  those 
of  different  prices  unless  I  have  felt  that 
a  certain  one  is  decidedly  better  than  the 
others,  "all  things  considered."  If  you 
can  afford  to  get  all  the  best  editions  of 
all  these  books,  your  children  are  fortu- 
nate; but  I  should  prefer  to  buy  all  the 


132    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

titles,  rather  thrfn  get  a  $2.50  "Golden 
Staircase"  and  no  "Posy  Ring."  * 

A  beautifully  made  volume  is  an  edu- 
cation in  taste,  and  a  very  ^unattractive 
edition  may  prejudice  a  child  against  a 
classic.  At  the  same  time,  the  literary 
content  of  the  book  is  the  only  real  essen- 
tial; and  if  you  teach  your  children  to 
think  that  anything  between  two  covers 
may  be  a  shining  delight,  you  may  bring 
home  a  shop-worn  bargain,  —  a  ten-cent 
"  iEsop  "  or  a  twenty-five  cent "  Alice,"  — 
and  be  thankful  for  the  chance,  if  it  is  a 
question  of  the  cheap  book  or  none  at  all. 

I  dislike  to  make  graded  lists,  since  one 
of  my  pet  hobbies  is  that  each  individual 
child  should  be  allowed  to  develop  as  fast 
as  his  own  nature  impels  him.  I  know  a 
little  girl  who  at  two  years  and  seven 
months  wanted  Kipling's  "Just  So  Sto- 
ries" read  (not  told)  to  her  every  night. 
I  know  another  who  knew  "The  Jungle 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  133 

Book"  almost  by  heart  at  the  age  of  four. 
A  boy  of  seven  delighted  in  Clodd's 
"  Childhood  of  the  World,"  a  serious 
though  clearly  written  account  of  prehis- 
toric man;  and  another  lad  of  the  same 
age  adored  Lamb's  "Adventures  of  Ulys- 
ses," which  is  practically  Chapman's 
translation  of  Homer's  Odyssey,  unal- 
tered except  by  omissions.  If  I  were  to 
grade  the  above  books  according  to  pub- 
lic-school standards,  I  should  not  dare 
list  the  three  last  below  the  grammar 
grades.  Neither  should  I  think  it  reason- 
able to  say  that  all  children  should  be 
given  them  at  ages  when  they  were  liked 
by  the  children  mentioned,  even  though 
those  were  perfectly  normal,  healthy 
youngsters,  no  one  of  whom  could  be 
called  precocious. 

I  do  not  believe  in  any  Procrustean 
method  of  supplying  books  to  children 
when  we  know  that  even  those  of  the 


134    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

same  family  and  the  same  environment 
develop  differently. 

However,  the  lists  will  be  thought  un- 
satisfactory if  I  do  not  suggest  some  sort 
of  an  age  guide.  I  will  therefore  grade 
them  according  to  my  observation  of  the 
likings  of  children  of  my  acquaintance, 
brought  up  by  parents  unafraid  of  fling- 
ing the  fodder  high  for  their  bright  young- 
sters to  reach. 

I  suggest  buying  the  books  listed  below 
in  the  order  given;  for  example,  Calde- 
cott's  nursery  rhymes  first  of  the  picture 
books,  "Dutchie  Doings"  one  or  two 
years  later  —  making  sure  of  getting  some 
titles  from  each  group  of  subjects. 

BOOKS  FOE  CHILDREN  UNDER  THREE 
YEARS  OF  AGE 

Poetry 
Stevenson,  Robert  Louis.    A   Child's  Garden  of 
Verses. 

Among  many  good  editions  are  those  illus- 
trated by  Storer  (Scribner.  $1.50)  and  by  Mars 
and  Squire  (Rand.  $.50). 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  135 

Picture  Books;  Mother  Goose;  Fairy  Tales. 
Caldecott,  Randolph.  Hey  Diddle  Diddle.  Warne. 
$.25. 

The  House  that  Jack  Built.  Warne.  $.25. 
Sing  a  Song  for  Sixpence.  Warne.   $.25. 
Potter,  Beatrix.    Tale  of  Peter  Rabbit.    Warne. 
$.50. 

Also   Tales  of   Benjamin  Bunny,  Jemima 
Puddleduck,  Mr.  Jeremy  Fisher,  Squirrel  Nut- 
kin,  Tom  Kitten,  and  others,  at  $.50  each. 
Brooke,  L.  Leslie.  Johnny  Crow's  Garden.  Warne. 

$1. 
Greenaway,  Kate.  Mother  Goose.  Warne.  $.60. 

Under  the  Window.  Warne.   $1.50. 
Lefevre,  Felicite.     The  Cock,  the  Mouse  and  the 

Little  Red  Hen.  Jacobs.  $1. 
Smith,  E.  Boyd.    The  Chicken  World.    Putnam. 

$1.50. 
Parkinson,  Ethel.  Dutchie  Doings.   Dodge.   $1. 
Lucas,  E.  V.,  and   Bedford,   F.   D.     Four   and 

Twenty  Toilers.  McDevitt- Wilson.  $1.75. 
Brooke,  L.  Leslie.   The  Three  Bears.  Warne.  $.40. 

The  Three  Little  Pigs.  Warne.  $.40. 
JEsop.  Fables. 

The  following  are  good  editions :  — 

Baby's  Own  JEsoy.    Illustrated  by  Crane. 
Warne.  $1.50. 

Book  of  Fables.  Chosen  by  Scudder.  Hough- 
ton. $.50. 


136    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Fables.   Illustrated  by  Rackham.  Double- 
day.  $1.50. 
Kipling,   Rudyard.    Just  So  Stories.     Scribner. 
$1.50. 

Stories  that  might  be  true 
Perkins,  Lucy  Fitch.    The  Dutch  Twins.    Hough- 
ton. $.50. 

The  Japanese  Twins.  Houghton.  $.50. 
Hopkins,  W.  J.   The  Sandman;  His  Farm  Stories. 
Page.  $1.50. 

The  Sandman;  More  Farm  Stories.    Page. 
$1.50. 

BOOKS  FOR  CHILDREN  THREE  TO  FIVE 
YEARS  OLD 

Poetry 
Our  Children's  Songs.  Harper.  $1.25. 
Wiggin,  Kate  Douglas,  and  Smith,  Nora  A.    The 
Posy  Ring.  Doubleday.  $1.25. 

Picture  Books 
Smith,  E.  Boyd.    The  Farm    Book.    Houghton. 
$1.50. 

The  Seashore  Book.  Houghton.   $1.50. 
Moffat,  A.  E.    Our  Old  Nursery  Rhymes.     Illus- 
trated by  Le  Mair.  McKay.  $1.50. 

Little  Songs  of  Long  Ago.  Illustrated  by  Le 
Mair.  McKay.  $1.50. 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  137 

Fairy  Tales 
Lorenzini,  Carlo.   Adventures  of  Pinocchio.   Ginn. 
$.40. 

An  edition   illustrated  by  Copeland   (Ginn. 
$1)  is  good.    So  also  is  one  illustrated  by  Folk- 
ard  (Dutton.  $  .50). 
Kingsley,  Charles.   Water  Babies.  Ginn.  $.35. 
Also  an  edition  illustrated  by  Goble  (Mac- 
millan.   $2). 
Grimm,  J.  L.  K.  and  W.  K.   Fairy  Tales.   Illus- 
trated by  Rackham.   Doubleday.  $1.50. 

Household  Stories.    Illustrated  by  Crane. 
Macmillan.   $1.50. 

Houghton  publishes  a  40-cent  edition. 
Kipling,  Rudyard.  Jungle  Book.  Century.  $1.50. 
Second  Jungle  Book.   Century.   $1.50. 

Bible 

Moulton,  R.  G.  Bible  Stories:  Old  Testament.  Mac- 
millan.  $.50. 

Kelman,  J.  H.  Stories  from  the  Life  of  Christ. 
Dutton.   $.50. 

Stories  that  might  be  true 
Abbott,  Jacob.  Franconia  Stories  (part).  Harper. 
$.60  each. 

Malleville.  Caroline. 

Beechnut.  Agnes. 

Siuyvesant. 


138    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Ward,  Mrs.  Humphry.  M illy  and  Oily.  Double- 
day.  $1.20. 

BOOKS  FOR    CHILDREN   FIVE   TO  SEVEN 
YEARS    OLD 

Picture  Books 
Boutet  de  Monvel,  L.  M.  Joan  of  Arc.  Century. 
$3. 

Poetry 
Chisholm,  Louey.  The  Golden  Staircase.   Putnam. 
Editions  at  $1,  $1.75,  and  $2.50. 

Bible 
The  Bible  for  Young  People.  Century.  $1.50. 

Fairy  Tales;  Other  Famous  Stories 

Harris,  Joel  Chandler.  Uncle  Remus;  His  Songs 
and  His  Sayings.  Appleton.   $2. 

Andersen,  Hans  Christian.  Fairy  Tales.  Illus- 
trated by  Stratton.  Lippincott.    $1.25. 

Kingsley,  Charles.  The  Heroes;  or,  Greek  Fairy 
Tales.   Ginn.   $.30. 

Hawthorne,  Nathaniel.  Wonder-Book.  Houghton. 
$.75. 

Tanglewood  Tales.  Houghton.  $.75. 
Many  editions  obtainable. 

Dodgson,  C.  L.  (Lewis  Carroll,  pseud.)  Alice's 
Adventures  in  Wonderland  and  Through  the 
Looking-Glass.  Illustrated  by  Tenniel.  Mac- 
millan.  $.50. 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  139 

Alice's  Adventures  in  Wonderland.    Illus- 
trated by  Rackham.  Doubleday.  $1.40. 
Craik,  D.  M.  (Mulock).   Little  Lame  Prince.    Il- 
lustrated by  Dunlap.  Rand.  $1.25. 
Howells,  W.  D.    Christmas  Every  Day.    Harper. 

$1.25. 
Pyle,  Howard.  Pepper  and  Salt.  Harper.  $1.50. 

Wonder  Clock.  Harper.  $2. 
Cervantes-Saavedra.    Don   Quixote.    Retold    by 

Parry;  illustrated  by  Crane.  Lane.  $1.50. 
Pyle,  Howard.   Merry  Adventures  of  Robin  Hood. 
Scribner.  $3. 

Stories  that  might  be  true 

Wyss,  J.  D.    The  Stoiss  Family  Robinson.    Illus- 
trated by  Rhead.  Harper.  $1.50. 

There  is  a  65-cent  edition  published  by  Ginn. 

Smith,  M.  P.  (Wells).    Jolly  Good  Times.  Little. 
$1.25. 

Four  on  a  Farm.  Little.  $1.50. 

Jackson,  Helen  Hunt.  Nelly's  Silver  Mine.  Little. 
$1.50. 

Sherwood,  M.  M.  (Butt).    The  Fairchild  Family. 
Illustrated  by  Florence  Rudland.  Stokes.  $1.50. 

Morley,  Margaret  W.    Donkey  John  of  the  Toy 
Valley.  McClurg.  $1.25. 

Crichton,  F.  E.    Peep-in-ihe-World.    Longmans. 
$1.25. 

Spyri,  Johanna.  Heidi.  Ginn.  $.40. 


140    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Nature  Books 

Wood,  Theodore.  Natural  History  for  Young 
People.  Dutton.  $2.50. 

Bertelli,  Luigi.  The  Prince  and  his  Ants.  Holt. 
$1.35. 

Kirby,  Mary  and  Elizabeth.  The  Sea  and  its  Won- 
ders. Nelson.  5s. 

Mitton,  G.  E.  The  Children's  Book  of  Stars.  Mac- 
millan.   $2. 

Parsons,  F.  T.  Plants  and  their  Children.  American 
Book  Co.  $.65. 

History 

Tales  and  Talks  from  History.   Caldwell.  $1. 

O'Neill,  Elizabeth.  Nursery  History  of  England. 
Stokes.  $2. 

Tappan,  EvaM.  Story  of  the  Greek  People.  Hough- 
ton. $.65. 

Grierson,  Elizabeth  W.  The  Children's  Book  of  the 
English  Minsters.  Macmillan.   $2. 

Lang,  Mrs.  Andrew.  Book  of  Princes  and  Prin- 
cesses.   Longmans.    $1. 

Travel 

Mitton,  G.  E.  The  Children's  Book  of  London. 
Macmillan.  $2. 

Schwatka,  Frederick.  Children  of  the  Cold.  Ed. 
Pub.  Co.   $1.25. 

Finnemore,  John.  Peeps  at  Switzerland.  Macmil- 
lan. $.55. 


BUYING  THE  LIBRAKY  141 

Occupations 
Johnston,  Bertha.    Home  Occupations  for  Little 

Children.  Jacobs.  $.50. 
Beard,  Lina  and  A.  B.   Little  Folks'  Handy  Book. 

Scribner.  $.75. 
Duncan,  Frances.   When  Mother  Lets  Us  Garden. 

Moffat.  $.75. 
Lucas,   E.  V.   and    Elizabeth.     Three  Hundred 

Games  and  Pastimes.    Macmillan.    $2. 
Johnson,  Constance.   When  Mother  Lets  Us  Help. 

Moffat.  $.75. 
Ralston,  Virginia.    When  Mother  Lets   Us  Sew. 

Moffat.  $.75. 
Rich,  G.  E.    When  Mother  Lets  Us  Make  Paper- 
Box  Furniture.  Moffat.  $.75. 

A  SUPPLEMENTARY  LIST 

FOR  CHILDREN  OVER  SEVEN  AND  FOR  THE 
YOUNGER  CHILDREN  WHO  DEVELOP  RAPIDLY 

Fairy  Tales  and  Other  Classics 
Arabian  Nights. 

The  following  editions  are  good :  — 

Arabian  Nights.    Edited  by  Olcott.   Holt. 
$1.50. 

Arabian  Nights.    Illustrated    by  Parrish. 
Scribner.  $2.50. 

Arabian  Nights'  Entertainments.  Edited  by 
Lang.  Longmans.  $2. 


142    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Stories  from  the  Arabian  Nights.  Illustrated 
byDulac.  Hodder.  $1.50. 

Stories  from  the  Arabian  Nights.  Houghton. 
$.40. 
Baldwin,  James.    Story  of  Siegfried.     Scribner. 

$1.50. 
Stockton,  F.  R.  Fanciful  Tales.  Scribner.  $.50. 
MacDonald,  George.    At  the  Back  of  the   North 
Wind.  Illustrated  by  Pape  and  Hughes.  Dodge. 
$1.50. 
Ruskin,  John.   King  of  the  Golden  River.   Heath. 

$.20. 
Lamb,  Charles.    Adventures  of  Ulysses.    Heath. 

$.25. 
Pyle,    Howard.    Story  of  King  Arthur  and  his 
Knights.  Scribner.  $2.50. 

Story  of  Sir  Launcelot  and  his  Companions. 
Scribner.   $2.50. 

Story  of  the  Champions  of  the  Round  Table. 
Scribner.  $2^50. 

Story  of  the  Grail  and  the  Passing  of  Arthur. 
Scribner.  $2.50. 
Defoe,  Daniel.  Robinson  Crusoe. 

An  edition  illustrated  by  Rhead    (Harper. 
$1.50)  and  one  illustrated  by  Smith  (Houghton. 
$1.50)  are  good.    Houghton  publishes  a  60-cent 
edition. 
Swift,  Jonathan.   Gulliver's  Travels. 

An  edition  illustrated   by  Rhead   (Harper. 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  143 

$1.50)  and  one  illustrated  by  Staynes  (Holt. 
$2.25)  are  good.  Houghton  publishes  a  40-cent 
edition. 

Lamb,  Charles  and  Mary.  Tales  from  Shake- 
speare. 

An  edition  illustrated  by  Price  (Scribner. 
$2.50)  is  beautiful.  Houghton  publishes  a  50- 
cent  edition. 

Chaucer.  Tales  of  the  Canterbury  Pilgrims.  Re- 
told by  Darton;  illustrated  by  Thomson. 
Stokes.  $1.50. 

Poetry 

Wiggin,  Kate  Douglas,  and  Smith,  Nora  A. 
Golden  Numbers.  Doubleday.  $2. 

Lang,  Andrew.  Blue  Poetry  Book.  Longmans.  $1. 

Repplier,  Agnes.  Book  of  Famous  Verse.  Hough- 
ton. $.75. 

Some  Fine  Historical  Stories 
Clemens,  S.  L.   (Mark  Twain,  pseud.)   The  Prince 

and  the  Pauper.  Harper.  $1.75. 
Dix,  B.  M.   Merrylips.  Macmillan.  $1.50. 
Dodge,  Mary  Mapes.  Hans  Brinker.  Scribner. 
The  edition  illustrated  by  Doggett  costs  $1.50. 
There  is  an  edition  without  illustrations  at  50 
cents. 
Pyle,  Howard.   Otto  of  the  Silver  Hand.  Scribner. 


144    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

Stein,  Evaleen.  Gabriel  and  the  Hour  Book.  Page. 

$1. 
Yonge,  Charlotte  M.   The  Little  Duke.  Illustrated 

by  Millar.  Macmillan.  $1.25. 

Miscellaneous 

Clodd,  Edward.  The  Childhood  of  the  World.  Mac- 
millan. $1.25. 

Hill,  C.  T.  Fighting  a  Fire.   Century.  $1.50. 

Ingersoll,  Ernest.  Book  of  the  Ocean.  Century. 
$1.50. 

Jewett,  Sophie.  God's  Troubadour  (St.  Francis  of 
Assisi).  Crowell.  $1.25. 

Lummis,  C.  F.  Some  Strange  Corners  of  our  Coun- 
try.  Century.  $1.50. 

Price,  O.W.   The  Land  We  Live  In.  Small.  $1.50. 

Richman,  Julia,  and  Wallach,  I.  R.  Good  Citizen- 
ship.  American  Book  Co.  $.45. 

Syrett,  Netta.  The  Old  Miracle  Plays  of  England. 
Young  Churchman.  $.80. 

Some  Interesting  Foreign  Picture  Books 

French 
Boutet  de  Monvel.  Nos  enfants.  Hachette. 

German 
Heubach.  Neue  Tierbilder.   Carl. 
Lefler  and  Urban.  Kling  Klang  Gloria.  Tempsky. 
Liebermann.  Kinder sang-heimatklang.  Scholz. 


BUYING  THE  LIBRARY  145 

Olfers.   Windchen.  Schreiber. 
Osswald.   Tierbilder.  Scholz. 
Pletsch.  Hausmiitterchen.  Hegel. 

Was  willst  du  werden?  Hegel. 

Swedish 
Adelborg.  Bilderbok.  Bonnier. 
Beskow.    Puttes  afventyr  i  blabarsskogen.    Walh- 
strom. 

Olles  shidjurd.  Wahlstrom. 


CHAPTER  XIII 

WHEN   THE   LITTLE   CHILDREN   GROW  BIG 

To  suggest  a  course  of  reading  for  the 
child's  first  seven  or  eight  years  has  been 
the  purpose  of  these  chapters.  I  cannot 
close  without  a  word  about  the  older  chil- 
dren's books.  For  a  fuller  treatment  of 
this  latter  subject  I  refer  parents  to  Miss 
Frances  Jenkins  Olcott's  admirable  book, 
"The  Children's  Reading."  The  appen- 
dices of  Miss  Olcott's  book  also  —  "How 
to  procure  Books  through  the  Public  Li- 
brary" and  "How  to  procure  Books  by 
Purchase"  —  will  be  invaluable  to  par- 
ents far  removed  from  good  book-stores. 
While  the  child  from  nine  to  twelve 
years  of  age  is  devouring  books  him- 
self, it  will  be  comparatively  easy  to  guide 
him  along  lines  already  followed.    After 


BOOKS  FOR  OLDER  CHILDREN  147 

a  while,  however,  the  curiosity  and  the 
self-assertiveness  of  the  adolescent  will 
probably  lead  him  into  "sprees"  of  read- 
ing stuff  that  will  be  your  despair.  This 
is  not  the  time  to  be  too  dictatorial  about 
what  the  boy  or  girl  shall  or  shall  not 
read.  Influence  rather  than  authority  is 
the  best  method  to  use  with  these  young 
persons,  who  know  more  than  they  will 
ever  know  again  in  their  lives  and  who 
will  kick  over  the  traces  if  we  hold  the 
reins  too  tightly.  Above  everything  keep 
the  confidence  of  these  big  children.  Con- 
tinue the  evening  reading-aloud  custom. 
Some  clever  mothers  have  told  me  that 
reading  aloud  the  very  trash  brought  home 
by  the  children,  reading  with  good-na- 
tured fun  at  the  extravagances  of  the 
stories,  has  resulted  in  their  children's 
presently  bursting  into  roars  of  sheep- 
ish laughter  and  thereafter  adopting  into 
the  family- joke  vocabulary  certain  choice 


148    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

expressions  from  the  absurd  tales.  Poking 
fun  is  much  more  effective  than  solemn 
commands  to  refrain  from  things  consid- 
ered wicked  —  forbidden  fruit  is  so  much 
more  enticing  than  an  open  basket. 

I  am  not  half  so  fearful,  for  children  of 
good  homes,  of  the  blood-and-thunder 
adventure  story  as  of  the  quantities  of 
"safe"  juvenile  books  published  to-day. 
For  one  thing  you  know  that- your  child, 
brought  up  as  he  has  been,  will  never 
actually  turn  pirate  or  highway  robber 
for  reading  some  of  these  gory  books, 
which  perhaps  serve  as  escape  valves  for 
the  boy's  innate  savagery  which  the  con- 
ventions of  our  civilization  merely  cover 
but  do  not  eradicate.  The  boy  who  has 
had  "no  bringing  up"  does  imitate,  the 
police  courts  tell  us,  the  deeds  of  violence 
of  which  he  reads  in  the  nickel  novel ;  but 
your  child's  snare  is  more  likely  to  be  the 
lazy-minded  series  habit. 


BOOKS  FOR  OLDER  CHILDREN   149 

It  is  curious  that  so  many  people  think 
that  if  one  removes  all  "swear  words,'* 
all  slang,  all  bowie  knives  and  pistols  from 
a  story,  the  result  will  be  a  "perfectly 
harmless"  book.  What  about  the  harm 
to  the  character  if  a  child  forms  the  habit 
of  taking  the  laziest  way  in  his  reading? 
The  adult  who  calls  the  mediocre  reading 
habit  harmless  has  naturally  been  influ- 
enced by  the  educational  methods  of  our 
time,  methods  which  put  most  of  the  work 
on  the  teacher  and  insure  the  child's  be- 
ing shielded  from  a  thing  so  old-fashioned 
as  boning  down  to  study  —  actually  to 
study  anything  that  does  not  "interest" 
him,  no  matter  how  vitally  important  to 
his  life  will  be  the  mastery  of  certain  un- 
interesting facts,  and  above  all  the  mas- 
tery of  his  own  will,  of  his  powers  of 
concentration. 

However,  I  have  really  not  the  slight- 
est fear  that  children  who  have  grown  up 


150    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

with  the  best  will  ever  acquire  any  lasting 
taste  for  poor  books.  Their  attacks  of 
reading  the  latter  will  leave  no  deeper 
marks  upon  their  minds  than  mild  cases 
of  chicken-pox  or  measles  leave  upon 
vigorous  young  bodies. 

I  shall  have  an  uneasy  conscience  if  I 
do  not  attempt  to  show  that  the  pro- 
gramme I  have  suggested  may  lighten 
rather  than  increase  the  mother's  cares. 

When  the  subject  of  the  small  families 
of  people  best  fitted  to  bring  up  children 
is  under  discussion,  we  occasionally  hear 
advanced  as  an  explanation  the  high  cost 
of  living  of  our  time  as  compared  with 
the  days  of  our  grandmothers. 

Once  in  a  while  a  valiant  soul  declares 
that  to  bring  into  the  world  ten  or  a  dozen 
children  to  be  reared  in  a  city  flat  ought 
to  be  sufficient  cause  for  arraigning  the 
parents  before  the  Society  for  the  Pre- 
vention of  Cruelty  to  Children. 


BOOKS  FOR  OLDER  CHILDREN  151 

I  have  not  heard  given  as  a  cause  for 
race  suicide  the  terrifying  diffusion  of 
knowledge  of  our  day. 

It  is  bad  enough  to  go  through  the 
anxiety  of  having  four  children  operated 
on  for  "adenoids  and  tonsils."  We  should 
have  to  build  more  sanatoria  for  worn- 
out  mothers  if  there  were  many  "old- 
fashioned"  families  of  children  to  put 
through  this  modern  ordeal. 

To  keep  enough  bottles  of  boiled  water 
on  the  ice  for  three  thirsty  youngsters  is 
no  light  task.  Imagine  trying  to  keep  up 
with  the  thirst  of  thirteen ! 

If  a  man  on  a  school-teacher's  salary 
pays  a  regular  monthly  dentist  bill  of  fif- 
teen dollars  for  three  children,  it  might 
sometimes  be  difficult  to  decide  how  to 
apportion  that  part  of  his  salary  left  over 
after  "  straightening  "  four  times  as  many 
mouths. 

I  can  go  through  the  list  of  my  mar- 


152    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

ried  friends,  all  of  whom  adore  children 
and  would  like  to  have  large  families,  and 
there  is  not  one  of  these  intelligent  par- 
ents but  is  paying  out  to  doctors  large 
sums  yearly  in  order  that  these  well-born 
children  may  grow  up  physically  perfect. 

And  now  I  am  adding  another  "  ought " 
to  the  daily  programme  of  the  devoted 
mother. 

Let  us  see  if  the  immediate  returns  will 
not  even  up  for  the  time  and  trouble 
spent  on  the  reading. 

To  begin  with,  every  mother  knows 
that  it  is  not  the  housework  so  much  as 
the  managing  a  bunch  of  lively  young 
humans  that  depletes  her  strength  and 
wears  out  her  nerves.  Just  let  a  vigorous 
father  undertake  to  relieve  the  mother, 
for  one  holiday,  of  the  care  of  the  kiddies. 
Is  n't  he  a  perfect  wreck  by  the  children's 
bedtime?  And  next  day  at  the  office  he 
confides   to   his   co-workers  —  somewhat 


BOOKS  FOR  OLDER  CHILDREN  153 

boastfully,  because,  so  long  as  he  does  n't 
have  the  care  of  them,  he  likes  to  think 
his  youngsters  are  particularly  active  — 
"By  Jove!  I  was  more  used  up  after  that 
day  with  the  kids  than  I  'd  be  in  a  month 
at  the  office!"  And  his  friends  who  are 
fathers  echo  feelingly,  "You're  dead  right 
on  that,  old  man!" 

If  one  can  find  a  scheme  that  will  help 
tide  over  crossness,  that  will  get  the  chil- 
dren into  the  habit  of  hurrying  instead  of 
dawdling  about  dressing  and  undressing, 
that  will  set  them  eagerly  to  tidying  up 
the  playroom,  wiping  the  silver  and  brush- 
ing off  the  crumbs,  —  of  being  really 
helpful  to  mother  without  constant  prod- 
ding, —  will  not  such  a  scheme  pay  its 
own  way?  I  know,  because  I've  tried  it, 
that  there  is  no  easier  way  of  getting 
magical  results  in  good  behavior  than  the 
promise  of  a  story  when  work  is  done. 
You  may  call  it  bribery,  but  did  you  never 


154    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

know  a  grown  person,  of  good  principles, 
too,  to  work  a  little  harder  and  faster  if 
he  saw  a  prospect  of  a  better  salary  for 
increased  output? 

There  is  another  way  in  which  this 
reading  programme  will  pay.  One  of  the 
deprivations  keenly  felt  even  by  the 
most  unselfish  mother  is  that  of  having 
no  time  to  cultivate  her  own  mind.  Her 
personal  reading  for  years  is  almost  zero. 
Now  the  reading  for  the  children  which 
I  have  suggested  is  so  splendid  as  to  be  a 
means  of  culture  to  the  adult  reader  as 
well  as  to  the  child  listener. 

So  in  oiling  the  wheels  of  discipline,  in 
saving  time  for  the  reading  by  securing 
the  children's  ready  help,  in  the  satisfac- 
tion of  broadening  one's  own  mental  hori- 
zon, in  keeping  close  to  the  intellectual 
and  spiritual  life  of  the  growing  children 
so  that  they  will  not  drift  into  thinking 
of  mother  as  merely  a  loving  caretaker  of 


BOOKS  FOR  OLDER  CHILDREN  155 

the  physical  needs,  because  I  am  certain 
of  all  the  above  and  many  more  good  re- 
sults, I  feel  justified,  not  only  for  the 
children's  but  for  the  mother's  sake,  in 
urging  the  carrying-out  of  the  course  pro- 
posed in  this  book. 

My  last  word  is  for  fathers  —  a  most 
unfairly  ignored  class  of  beings  in  these 
days ! 

Much  of  the  foregoing  reading  must  be 
done  by  the  mother  because  she  is  with 
the  children  so  many  more  hours  than 
the  father;  but  there  is  no  reason  why 
bedtime  and  Sunday  story-hours  may 
not  be  the  father's  share  of  this  pleasur- 
able duty.  A  man  may  be  too  clumsy  to 
help  about  baths  and  buttons,  but  if  he 
reads  a  daily  paper  he  cannot  deny  the 
ability  to  read  young  people's  story-books. 
A  father  ought  to  be  unwilling  to  leave  all 
spiritual  intimacy  with  his  children  to  the 
mother.  By  sharing  their  pleasure  in  their 


156    READING  TO  THE  CHILDREN 

books  he  will  be  learning  wonderfully  how 
to  be  a  father  to  the  minds  and  hearts  of 
his  boys  and  girls  as  well  as  a  generous 
provider  for  their  material  needs. 


THE   END 


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